


Kim Possible: Forgotten Seeds

by chris_the_cynic



Category: Kim Possible (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 12:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2581307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chris_the_cynic/pseuds/chris_the_cynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten prisoners awaken to find themselves in an abandoned cryogenic prison on the moon.</p><p>Based, with permission, off LJ58's "Fallen Heroes".  If I have world enough and time this will be the central story of a five story series, which is part of why this starts where it does instead of somewhere analogous to the beginning of "Fallen Heroes".  It won't start to _really_ diverge from its inspiration until they get off the moon.</p><p>Eventual Kigo, so if that drives you away don't read, but it's never going to be the focus.  It's a gen story that, when all is said and done, will have had relationships in it without being about the relationships.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Awakening

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fallen Heroes](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/81845) by LJ58. 



> The only thing it would help to know going in (though you'd figure out soon enough anyway) is that Kim retired from being a hero after Ron leveled up in the final episode of the series and, as a result of of the extra time that gave her to devote to her studies, has proven every bit as much of a technical genius as her father and her brothers. Thus we have "Kim, the inventor who used to be a hero" rather than "Kim, the hero".

Shego woke up and, as she usually did, tried to go back to sleep.

Then she realized three things:

  1. The last thing she remembered was Kimmie injecting her with something
  2. She was completely naked,
  3. She was vertical instead of horizontal.



Upon opening her eyes she found that she seemed to be in a glass tube, and beyond it she saw a plain metal hallway that was too generic to place. She pushed on the glass in front of her and found that it gave easily. It moved out of her way lightly on hinges she hadn't noticed were there.

When she stepped free she found that things were very, very wrong.

She was too light. Much too light. Her first thought was to wonder what Kim had done to her but a quick look showed that she hadn't been starved and there was no way that _that_ could account for how light she was anyway.

Almost all of her weight was gone. Walking was … odd. She fell on her face more than once before she got the hang of it.

In spite of what people thought, Shego did pay attention and she did study. She knew she was too light to be on the surface of any planet. There were, however, multiple moons she might be on. Just what the hell had Kimmie done after injecting her?

Examining her surroundings was very, very unpleasant.

The glass tube was the front of the contraption she'd been in, the back was a near vertical “bed” built into a strange metal machine. Next to it was a similar device, this one closed and frost evident on the surface. Inside of it was a very still DNAmy, recognizable in spite of being somewhat obscured by the frost build up on the glass.

It was what was next to _that_ that was the problem. Another “bed” whose occupant was dead. And another one just like it next to it. And another, and another, and another. The chamber Shego was in was very large and had multiple floors, it was full of the devices each of which had someone in it, and it seemed that _everyone_ was dead.

Everyone save herself and Amy.

Shego found an unlocked supply closet, it didn't contain much of interest but it did, mercifully, contain clothing--plain white clothing that she deemed a fashion disaster--but clothing she put on none the less.

She found a computer and was able to look up a map of the facility.

The devices were called “cryo beds” and it seemed that most of them had gone offline. She didn't bother finding out how many there were, she didn't want to know. She instead found out how many other survivors there were: nine.

Hers was the only one that had opened. Of the closed ones there were nine that still held living occupants

The computer gave brief descriptions of each:

> Name: AMY HALL  
>  Alias: DNAmy  
>  Reason for Suspension: Deemed a threat to global security  
>  Notes: Rouge geneticist  
>  Authorization for Suspension: Dr. Elizabeth Director

Shego laughed at 'Rouge' instead of 'Rogue'.

> Name: DREW LIPSKY  
>  Alias: Doctor Drakken  
>  Reason for Suspension: Multiple attempts at world domination  
>  \-----Deemed a threat to global security  
>  Notes: Brilliant inventor; inept in all other areas  
>  Authorization for Suspension: Dr. Elizabeth Director

Again Shego got a giggle out of the notes.

> Name: SARAH ANDERSON  
>  Alias: Surge  
>  Reason for Suspension: Member of Sonique's organization.  
>  Notes: Able psychically manipulate electronics  
>  Authorization for Suspension: Dr. Elizabeth Director

This gave Shego pause. She quickly cross-referenced “Reason for Suspension” with dates. There were too many records to read them all and Shego didn't want to read about any of the dead people anyway. She didn't want to know their names.

Regardless it seemed that between Drakken's “Suspension” in 2013 and Surge's in 2018 the reason necessary had gone from “threat to global security” to simply being a lackey. Digging deeper into Surge's file than the surface summary mentioned something called the Sander's Act.

Quick glances at other records seemed to show that it was invoked every time someone had been put into cryo-statis for no defensible reason.

Shego didn't know what the Sander's Act was, or why it mattered, but she was guessing it wasn't good. She returned to looking at records of survivors.

> Name: HORATIO SYSKA  
>  Alias: None  
>  Reason for Suspension: Espionage  
>  Notes: It has never been determined how he accomplishes his spying.  
>  \-----Suspected mutant  
>  Authorization for Suspension: Dr. Elizabeth Director

> Name: NOLAN ROBERTS  
>  Alias: Hawk  
>  Reason for Suspension: Sheltering Sander's Act fugitives  
>  Notes: Able to form viable wings at will  
>  Authorization for Suspension: Dr. Elizabeth Director

> Name: RYAN SMITH  
>  Alias: None  
>  Reason for Suspension: Deemed a threat to global security  
>  Notes: Prefers targeting civilian populations with explosives.  
>  Authorization for Suspension: Dr Elizabeth Director

That was the first of the incarcerations Shego agreed with. “If the 'Notes' section is accurate,” she mentally amended.

> Name: WILLIAM TAYLOR  
>  Alias: Blok  
>  \-----Bill  
>  Reason for Suspension: Gang activity.  
>  Notes: Can turn into “stone”  
>  Authorization for Suspension: Dr. Elizabeth Director

> Name: HENRY SANDERS  
>  Alias: Janus  
>  Reason for suspension: Impersonating World Leader  
>  Notes: Limited shape shifting ability  
>  Authorization for suspension: Dr. Elizabeth Director

The last survivor seemed to be separated from the others, when Shego found out who it was she gasped.

> Name: KIMBERLY POSSIBLE  
>  Alias: Kim, KP  
>  Reason for Suspension: Deemed a threat to global security  
>  Notes: Former Hero  
>  \-----Inventor  
>  \-----Nascent villain  
>  \-----High risk of attempted rescue; removed from gen-pop  
>  \-----Designed cryogenic bed; hers can only be opened manually as a precaution  
>  Authorization for Suspension: Dr. Elizabeth Director

Shego attempted to access Kim's file but found it highly encrypted, far beyond her own skill to crack.

Six hours later she had discovered several distressing things.

She wasn't all that surprised by the lack of guards. If people had been left to die when their cryo beds went offline then she figured this wasn't really a prison, it was a method of execution that allowed those who implemented it to tell themselves they weren't actually executing people. She was surprised by the state of repair.

The facility was immaculate, but low on power. Heavy doors wouldn't open, light ones did so lethargically. The security systems to prevent escape, the very things that should be stopping her from having free reign, were entirely useless. State of the art lasers couldn't fire and could only manage to twitch when they should have tracked her every move. Force fields didn't operate. Half of the computers running the place had recently fried when their cooling system lost power. The heat was gone but the smell lingered. The other half didn't look like they'd last long.

From what she could access on the computer terminals that were working, she found that she couldn't open the cryo beds. Hers had opened as a safety precaution when it ran out of power. The ones that hadn't opened when they lost power, more than ten thousand of them, had been prevented from opening by some override system that had been running on the now fried computer banks.

There was no food.

The water that there was she had to collect from anti-condensation chambers designed to keep the electronics from getting wet by removing moisture from the air.

The air itself wasn't going to last long, at least it wouldn't if she wanted to get out. Environmental systems were keeping the CO2 levels safe, but the oxygen wasn't being replenished. Something, the computer wasn't sure what, had used up most of it long before Shego had woken up. What there was had been collected into the chambers with living prisoners. If that air was shared with the places she needed to use to reach the nearest exit the O2 would be too thin to breathe for long.

She had no idea where she was. While a map of the interior was available and easy to access, information on the outside was in a computer that had powered down. It was, fortunately, not on one of the ones that had _melted_ , but there wasn't enough power to turn it back on. If she tried to boot it up the power drain would short the system knock out all the computers.

When looking into this she happened to notice the date displayed on the computer she was using: 6/22/2529. Checking various other things confirmed that it wasn't a mistake. The last time a human being had interacted with the computers of the prison was almost five hundred years earlier. The last entries were fairly routine and then centuries of nothing but automated log updates.

They'd been abandoned. All of the prisoners, thousands of them, had simply been abandoned. They'd been left to die when the power ran out without so much as a note saying why.

No guard had set foot in the facility for centuries. Apart from the “centuries” part she had assumed as much, but somehow it finally hit home for her. No one had been there to witness the passing of most of her fellow prisoners. No one had cared enough to save them. No one was there now.

She was completely alone.

The last thing she found was that there was one person she _could_ wake. Kim's cryo bed had been set to manual. Shego was pacing back and forth outside of it when the intercom tried to announce something. It did very little other than crackle and spurt, but it was enough to send Shego running to a computer terminal.

\---

The last thing Amy Hall remembered was trying to force a Ninja school into releasing her beloved Monty.

Now she was naked in some sort of tube.

She got out of it and found white clothing laid out for her. She was putting it on when a door lurched open.

“Oh god; I wish I hadn't seen that,” Shego said as she backed out of the room she'd just entered.

“Shego?”

“Welcome to the prison of the future,” Shego said in a sarcastic imitation of a tour guide. “No guards, thinning air, way more nudity than you'd ever want, and … oh yeah, almost all of the inmates are dead.”

“What's going on?”

“Finish dressing, then we have to meet Dr. D.”

“I'm finished,” Amy said. “Now, what's going on?”

“Apparently Kimmie designed cryogenic stasis technology, then she was interred here herself.”

“Where is here?”

“Here is where Global Justice sticks everyone they don't like,” Shego said. “Stuck,” She she amended. “They stuck us here, then left.”

“Left?”

“A long time ago.”

“How long?” Amy asked.

“Five hundred years give or take. My last memory is from 2010. Yours?”

“Early 2011.”

“They nabbed Drakken in 2013. Surge in 2018. I didn't recognize the rest of the survivor's names, didn't check the dates either.”

“You said they had Possible.”

“She's got her own room. Apparently she's a 'nascent villain'.”

“Always thought she had it in her.”

“I have my doubts,” Shego said. “Anyway, let's find Drakken before he blows something up.” Shego led the way.

\---

Drakken had put on the white clothing that had been laid out in front of his cryo bed.

He'd also managed to stop his utter panic that had commenced when he noticed that he was surrounded by dead bodies.

He recognized the technology immediately, it was Kim Possible's tech. Supposedly abandoned shortly before the retired hero's untimely demise, it had obviously been taken and mass produced.

He had little doubt as to who was responsible. Global Justice stepped up their efforts after Possible died. In truth they'd been cracking down since her retirement and his short lived pardon. Possible's death just accelerated things. The five years between her retirement and death didn't see anything like the downward spiral he witnessed in the two years after her death.

When he was finally captured it was almost a relief. That meant he wouldn't be killed. Sure, GJ never abandoned the taser as their primary weapon, but there had been more than a few 'accidents'. Accidents that were never subject to inquiry, explanation, or reprimand.

Now, looking at what was so obviously Possible's stolen technology, he was confused. The cryo beds were a marvel of technology, one that he totally understood GJ's desire to steal, and they should never have failed. The ones around his had obviously failed.

When Possible had turned from famous hero to reclusive inventor he followed her career with interest. When Shego disappeared he made the mistake of trying to force the reason out of Possible. When he heard the news of her cryo beds he had a feeling that that was what had become of Shego. No prison could hold her, but if she had been asleep the whole time...

But Possible's technology was better than this. She had failsafes on her failsafes. There was no way that she'd make the death chambers that he was now surrounded by.

He had to find a computer terminal, he was missing something.

\---

Shego and Amy found Drakken in front of a computer screen, studying.

He noticed them enter the room and said, “Ah, Shego,” absently.

“Doc,” Shego said, “do you realize that--”

“Five hundred sixteen years have passed while we've been in cryostasis and we're being held in a failing Global Justice facility on the moon? Yes.”

“Do you know which moon?” Amy asked him.

“The moon,” he said. “Earth's moon.”

“So it could be worse,” Shego said.

“It could also be better,” Drakken said. “I see no records of food being stored anywhere within this facility and most of it isn't functioning regardless. We're trapped here.”

“I was hoping you could come up with some kind of a plan to get us out,” Shego said.

\---

Drakken was surprised at Shego's lack of abuse. He did notice that his long rest seemed to have calmed himself, perhaps the same had happened to her. He hoped that was it, because if things were really so hopeless that Shego had lost her sarcasm he knew there was a very real chance they were going to die.

Only parts of the schematics were open to him, not enough to form a plan, and of what he could see there wasn't enough power to accomplish anything.

The intercom system tried to say something and he saw a flashing on the monitor. Two more cryo beds would open because of imminent power loss.

Drakken told Shego and Amy and the three headed toward hold seven, where the two waking prisoners were located.

\---

Sarah woke up and decided that if they were going to treat her like a criminal regardless of what she did she'd damn well start acting like one. Her attempts to put “Surge” behind her had obviously failed, so she would be Surge.

She'd take vengeance on those sanctimonious jerks who--

And that was when she fell --agonizingly slowly-- on her face, learning the hard way that attempting to move in the lunar gravity the way one would on earth simply did not work.

She bounced, something she hadn't expected, and thanked whatever gods may be for the railing that stopped her from tumbling into empty air. As she slowly got on her feet she realized that the room she was in was four stories tall and she was on the third story of it.

She clung to the railing for fear of falling, still not quite realizing why she was having trouble moving around.

When she turned around she was so surprised she collapsed to the metal walkway again.

There were bodies. Seemingly endless bodies. All dead.

\---

Horatio pushed open his cryo bed, smelled the stale air, and closed his eyes for a moment.

Then he picked up the white clothes laid out in front of his cryo bed, carefully unfolded them, and put them on.

He made his way to a ladder that gave access to all four levels of the room her was in, climbed down from his place on level four to level three, and walked to Sarah, still huddled in shock.

He picked up the clothes that had been left in front of her cryo bed and handed them to her. Then he returned to the ladder and climbed to the ground level.

\---

Drakken, Shego, and Amy waited expectantly for the door to hold seven to open enough to walk through. When it didn't do so quickly Shego helped the door along with brute force.

They found two people dressed in the clothes Shego had laid out for them when she had surveyed the facility alone earlier.

“Surge,” Shego said nodding to the pink-haired woman. “Horatio, I presume,” she said to the man with wild brown hair. The man nodded.

“We're in a deteriorating Global Justice facility on the moon,” Drakken said. “We don't have access to the full systems and we don't have enough power to use most of the systems we do have access to. Can either of you help?”

Horatio shook his head.

Surge gestured to the bodies in the cryo beds and asked, “What about them?”

“There's nothing we can do for them,” Drakken said.

“Right now we need to think about the people who are still alive,” Amy told Surge.

“There are ten of us, we're,” Shego gestured to the entire group, “the first five wake up.”

“Why are we alive if the others died?” Surge asked.

“The cryo bed's original designer--” Shego started

“Kim Possible,” Drakken added.

“The original designer,” Shego said, obviously annoyed, “made fail safes so that a power failure would never injure, much less kill, the occupant. The ones who actually used them decided they'd rather see us die. Their override system was clunky at best and apparently required computers that recently failed. Now we're waking up as the power runs out.”

“It's running out fast,” Drakken said. “All of the survivors will be awake within 24 hours. We just have to hope that at least one of them can help us.”

“Which brings us back to the original question,” Amy said. “Is there anything you can do to help?”

“Well...” Surge said, “I could use my power to interface with the compu--”

“No!” Drakken and Shego shouted in unison.

“We've met,” Surge sheepishly explained to a befuddled Amy.

“Though you were younger then,” Shego said, “Have your powers improved?”

“I've been retired,” Surge admitted. “I haven't had a lot of practice.”

“So, what now?” Amy asked.

“We wait for the next batch to wake up,” Drakken said.

“I hate waiting,” Shego said.

\---

Drakken had been able to predict that the prisoner in Holding Area Thirteen would be the next to awaken and so they'd been waiting there for Nolan Roberts to wake up. The five sat in a circle, all angled at least slightly away from Robert's cryo bed to give him some modesty when he woke up.

Shego and Amy knew the least about the state of the world, Drakken's knowledge only got them two years closer to understanding. Surge was able to share what happened all the way into 2018. Horatio never said a word.

\---

Hawk blinked awake and found himself in some kind of glass tube. It wasn't the first time. The ability to spontaneously generate limbs was reason enough for people to want to poke and prod him. That those limbs were ones that no mammal had any right to have in the first place was even more. The fact that he was able to fly on the wings, and even able to carry other people, when the wings were too small to provide the necessary lift was just the icing on the cake.

More than once he'd escaped only because the people planning to vivisect him couldn't agree on who got first cut.

He'd never seen the ones who captured him this time, but he had a good guess. He'd finally annoyed the big dogs. There had been warning that Global Justice was on to him, but there'd been only so much he could do. Marcella's Free Zone was nearly impossible to locate and travel to Japan was restricted. Trapped within GJ allied countries there was simply no secure hiding place.

That hadn't even been the worst part. The worst part was that he was supposed to be a criminal, he was supposed to be as far from altruistic as possible, but he'd somehow found himself guardian of a growing flock of genetic outcasts.

Some had been subjected to the same kind of experimentation as him. Some had seen worse. Some were lucky in that they only lived in fear of it. He was their protector, their guardian, the one who promised, against every impulse, to keep them safe.

Even if he could find a way out for himself, they were not so easy to move in a hurry.

So he'd held back. He'd slowly gone in one direction leaving a trail of bread crumbs that was just a little too obvious to ignore but not conspicuous enough to be an obvious false trail. Meanwhile his charges had fled in a different direction as fast as they could without leaving a trail.

Sure enough someone caught up with him. The last thing he remembered was a pain in his back.

Surveying the room beyond the glass was … odd. It was an empty room. Not a lab like he expected. The occupants were wearing matching white clothes, which could indicate a “science” team, but rather than examining him or readouts they were sitting in a circle talking to each other.

He tested the glass in front of him and was surprised to find it freely gave.

\---

At the sound of the cryo bed opening Amy said, “Mind the low gravity,” without turning.

“Put on the clothes and tell us when you're dressed,” Shego added.

Soon they explained the situation to him and it turned out he had nothing new to contribute to an escape attempt.

Sprouting wings and flying, while impressive, wouldn't help them much while trapped indoors.

For the first time Shego raised the possibility of waking Kim Possible.

\---

Smith woke up and immediately started a threat assessment. Glass in front of him, a protective railing beyond that. No matter how clean it was he recognized a prison when he saw one.

The glass was different, it implied the small chamber he occupied was a cryo bed. A cell. That might be a good thing. He was awake and there were no armed guards. Probably a glitch.

The benefit of a cryo prison was that it didn't need guards. Sleeping convicts couldn't attempt to escape. No prison violence, no riots, no escape attempts. Keep the location a secret and there would be no outsiders trying to break the incarcerated out. That meant a skeleton crew at most. With the exception of moving prisoners, prisons like this didn't actually _need_ anyone working at them. The guards were purely there for public relations reasons. It made the tax payers feel safer knowing there was someone with a gun around their con-sicles.

When there wasn't a press visit, which itself was very rare considering that cryo prisons were uniformly _secret_ prisons, the actual guard posted at the facility would be almost non-existent.

Automated defenses, on the other hand, could be expected in droves.

Still, he knew what to expect.

Testing the weight of his arms and legs he knew exactly where he was. Luna-1. The first and largest cryo-prison, Global Justice's favorite place to stick the undesirables of the world, and never officially acknowledged to exist.

The handful of earthbound cryo-prisons had their locations kept secret, but Luna-1 had its entire existence firmly and repeatedly denied. There was never a press presence here. There was never a need to station guards for show.

There would probably be almost no one to stop him.

He pushed the glass in front of him and smiled as his cryo-bed opened. He was definitely right, some kind of glitch had set him free.

He was sure he could catch the guards off guard and be out of here in a hurry.

When he saw the white clothing neatly laid out in front of his cryo bed, his and no other in sight, he was forced to reevaluate everything.

\---

The first thing Blok noticed was his mass. It was way too low. He was much more used to changes in mass than most people. In his stone form he weighed more than half a ton. In human form he weighed almost exactly two hundred pounds. Changing between the two forms repeatedly left him intimately familiar with what it felt like for his body to have a different mass.

What he wasn't used to was weighing _less_ than his human form. Much less.

He estimated he weighed about thirty pounds, give or take.

When he opened his eyes and saw his surroundings he had some idea of what was going on.

Years ago Kim Possible had reentered the public eye to propose the use of cryogenic technology in prisoner storage. He'd only paid enough attention to note that she wasn't returning to the hero business. Later that month she apparently died.

Over the next few years information came out implicating Global Justice in her demise. Then political hell broke loose when Ron Stoppable went public with information that Global Justice had stolen Kim's cryo technology, built a secret lunar prison, and made her the first inmate.

The Lunar prison was never located, which meant that rescue was impossible. It was beyond all jurisdictions so no national agency could bring Global Justice to task for what it did there. All that could be done was withdrawing from the UN and Global Justice's power.

Japan had done so before Stoppable even went public. In theory it should have meant nothing more than Global Justice no longer operating in Japan. In practice it looked like Global Justice was preparing for war with Japan, but that never came to pass.

Once there was proof more nations left the fold while Global Justice became closer and closer to the Dark UN Enforcers of the nightmares of people who thought in capital letters.

They cracked down on every country they still had a foothold in. Not that they hadn't been doing that before, but once the truth was out they did it openly. Before people disappeared without any proof as to who did it; after GJ started operating in broad daylight, in the streets, and didn't care who knew.

That's when he was nabbed.

The Lunar cryo prison had never been found.

Everyone assumed that it was where the disappeared people were sent.

It's where he must have been sent. It wasn't his mass that was off, it was gravity. He wasn't less massive, as he had originally assumed, he weighed less.

He phased into stone form and then felt silly. His transformation destroyed the cryobed, but the glass cover that served as the door had apparently been unlocked. He phased back into human form and surveyed his surroundings. A pile of white clothes was in front of his cryo tube and he heard movement above him.

He quickly got dressed. A few minutes after he'd finished a voice called out, “Ryan! Blok! Get down here; we have an escape to plan.”

\---

They'd decided to sleep, there was nothing else to do. It would be a while before new prisoners were released. Holding Area 23 would lose power next. Two new prisoners, but not for more than eight hours.

Hawk, having just woken up, didn't need sleep just then. Surge said she hadn't been awake long enough. Horatio curled up in a ball, covered his eyes with an arm, and seemed to go to sleep immediately.

By the time eight hours had passed they'd all been sleeping. Some because it was better than boredom.

That was why they were late for the opening of the cryo beds in Holding Area 23.

When they arrived Shego noted two figures in white on the upper levels. She shouted, “Ryan! Blok! Get down here; we have an escape to plan.”

The one on the second level hurdled over the railing and transformed to a bulkier figure made of stone as he fell. The landing was too light for Shego's taste. A hard reminder that even if they found a way out of this prison they were still on the moon.

The stone creature, which looked like a caricature of a large man that had been carved out of granite, transformed back into a dark haired man in white clothes.

“Blok, at your service,” he said.

Ryan Smith took longer to reach the ground floor.

“What's the situation?” he asked.

“This facility has been abandoned,” Hawk said. “We're lucky that the fail safes finally kicked in otherwise we'd be like them,” he gestured to all of the cryo beds in the room that didn't open.

Apparently Ryan and Blok hadn't looked back before. They both had a moment of shock, but Ryan's moment was much shorter.

“The functioning cryo beds are opening as the power failure becomes too much for them to keep running,” Drakken said. “That power failure is also stopping us from moving the larger doors and providing annoyances left and right.”

“Most of the still functioning computers are open to us,” Surge said. “But some parts we haven't been able to get to because none of us are good enough hackers.”

“The people who built this place didn't expect prisoners to be awake and accessing the computers.” Amy said. “They were lazy with them, but not completely stupid. There's a chance that the parts they were afraid we might access are parts that would help us get out.”

“We're on the moon,” Nolan said.

“I know,” Ryan snapped.

“I'd guessed as much,” Blok added.

“And that pretty much covers it,” Shego said. “Other than the fact that we've all been asleep around five hundred years.”

That shocked Ryan and Blok.

Once it became clear that neither of them had much to contribute to an escape attempt Shego brought up Possible again.

“The same person who designed these cages,” she gestured to the cryo beds, “Is a prisoner here too. Except her cryo bed will only open manually.”

“Leave Possible to rot,” Ryan said.

“She'd do just that,” Shego spat back. “Not only can hers be opened manually, it can _only_ be opened manually. She'll end up like one of them,” Shego gestured to the dead bodies who had never been released from their cryo beds, “if we do nothing.”

“So what?” Ryan asked.

“That would be murder,” Surge said. “We'd be no better than the ones who left us to die.”

“I'm not in favor of leaving her to die,” Hawk said, “but I'd rather wait on letting a hero loose in here. She was on GJ's side.”

“And betrayed by that side,” Blok said.

“Do you know what happened to her?” Amy asked.

“It doesn't matter,” Ryan spat.

“What does matter,” Shego said, “is that if she worked on the cryo beds she may have also worked on the prison itself. She might be able to get us out of here.”

“It'll be another hour, two at most, before the last prisoner is freed,” Drakken said. “Why don't we wait on decisions about Kim Possible until we see if he can help us?”

\---

Henry knew where he was when he woke. After what he tried there was only one place they might send him. Luna-1. The 'secret' prison on the moon. It had never been located or officially admitted to, but everyone knew about it. In fact, it had become so famous that _whenever_ someone disappeared there would be whispers about Luna-1. Usually the whispers meant nothing, but in his case he must have been sent there.

What he didn't understand was _why_ he woke up. In spite of Luna-1 being a cryo prison, something that was never intended for life sentences, no one had ever returned from Luna-1.

Stranger still was the lack of guards. Henry had never been a physical threat to anyone, but it wasn't like Global Justice to leave _anyone_ without armed guards. Especially considering how much he had annoyed them.

Try to change the world, end up being turned into a popsicle.

That was the price of trying to be a hero, he decided. Pranks and small time crimes were much safer.

He cautiously pushed the cryo bed open. It was only when he saw the clothing laid out in front of it that he realized he was naked. He put it on and then turned back toward his prison.

\---

“Oh my god!” came a shout from above the eight survivors.

“He's awake,” Ryan said.

“He's awake,” Shego repeated. Then she shouted in Henry's direction, “Get over here. We need to find out if you're useful.”

\---

Henry quickly confirmed what Shego had feared and suspected. He was no more help in escaping the dying Lunar prison than any of the others.

“That settles it,” Shego said. “We have to wake Kimmie.”

“I thought you said you couldn't--” Henry said.

“We couldn't open anyone else's,” Shego said. “It seems that Global Justice never really understood the technology. They could duplicate it, but a lot of the programming was hardwired into the circits themselves. They weren't able to isolate the parts they didn't like, and were always afraid that Kim had hidden a feature to save herself in it. They made sure that hers could only be opened manually.”

“That doesn't change the fact that we should leave her to die,” Ryan said, “or kill her ourselves.”

“Ok,” Shego said while green plasma erupted from her hands. “You don't get to talk anymore.”

“Releasing her would be a risk,” Amy said.

“Red is always a risk,” Blok said, “But having her on our side would be something to behold.”

“We're out of options,” Hawk said. “We let her out.”

“I'd like to see her save me instead of stop me for a change,” Drakken said, quickly adding, “even if she was downright scary toward the end. If we want to live we have to let her out.”

“I want to live,” Surge said.

“Then let's let her out,” Henry said.

\---

Given that Kim's last memory was a taser in the back while Will Du and Elizabeth Director lectured her about how her taking the law into her own hands was a threat to the world while them doing the same was totally peachy she had a pretty good idea where she was.

What she didn't expect was who she saw.

Nine people all wearing white clothing. Shego, DNAmy, Drakken and Block she recognized. The five others not so much.

Shego opened her cryo bed and said, “Princess, you had better have a plan.”

“What's the sitch?” Kim asked.

“Well first off you're naked. Put on clothes.” Shego shoved a bundle of white clothes that matched her own into Kim's arms. The eight others turned away to give her a least a modium of privacy. Shego simply stared.

“Do you mind?” Kim asked as she pulled on pants.

“Well I figure you saw me naked enough, now it's my turn.”

“It's not like I had much of a choice,” Kim snapped. “They were going to kill you if I didn't come up with another solution.”

“And that makes everything better,” Shego sneered.

“If it makes you happy, you're part of the reason I was locked up here.” Kim said.

“She's decent,” Shego announced. “How was I a part of it?”

“You, Amy, and Dementor were the stated reasons for locking me up.”

“Dementor?”

“You and Amy were thrown in my lap by Ron who wanted to find a way to deal with you without killing you.”

“How is what you did different from killing?

“Because I was going to let you out,” Kim said. “You weren't frozen, just in a deep, deep sleep. I developed a way to have the equivalent of therapy going on and was hoping for rehabilitation.”

“Mind control,” Shego spat.

“No!” Kim shouted. “Why does everyone assume mind control? It's no more mind control than a court order to see a therapist.”

“And Dementor?”

“He attacked one of my students. I lost my temper but his injuries shouldn't have been fatal.”

“Shouldn't?”

“Instead of getting medical help he ran for eleven blocks. The stress made the injuries much worse and the police were more interested in stopping me than helping him. By the time anyone actually bothered to look for him they found that he'd decided hiding in a subway tunnel was better than getting help. That decision cost him his life.”

“Damn,” Shego said.

“While this is all very interesting,” a woman, with pink hair, that Kim guessed to be a pacific islander in her twenties said, “it doesn't really help us.” She turned to Shego. “You said she could help. She doesn't look like much.”

“Kimmie, meet Surge,” Shego said. “You know Drakken and Amy--”

“And Blok,” Kim interjected.

“Right, he mentioned something about knowing you,” Shego said. “The others are Hawk,” she gestured to a lean black man with short black hair, “Horatio,” she gestured to a Caucasian with wild dark hair, “Ryan,” another Caucasian, this one with well groomed sandy blond hair, “and Henry,” a wiry Hispanic man, his hair of uniform length--about four inches. “We're all that's left. Apparently Global Justice overrode your safety features, but couldn't figure out how to do it in the cryo beds themselves. When some of their computers crashed we started getting let out as the power died. The rest weren't so lucky.”

“The rest?” Kim asked.

“This facility had well over ten thousand prisoners,” Drakken said. “Then ten of us are all that remain.”

“Ten … thousand?” Kim asked in shock.

“Ten,” Hawk said. “Ten people who --right here, right now-- need a way out. The power is dying, the air is stale. We have no information on what might be outside these walls. Some of the computers are dead, some offline, others have security we can't crack. Can you help us?”

“The power's failing?” Kim asked, confused.

Henry was reading the information displayed on her cryo bed. When he finished he said, “It's been five hundred eighteen years since you were captured.”

“That can't be … I mean...” Kim sputtered.

“I'm afraid so sweetie,” Amy told her.

“And the guards?” Kim asked.

“Haven't checked in in centuries,” Shego said.

Kim walked to the nearest computer terminal. “Give me a minute,” she said.


	2. Stepping Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The survivors work together to leave their Lunar prison.

“Well?” Surge asked impatiently.

Kim didn't look up from the console she was using, “The facility is bigger than anything I ever intended, but the basics haven't changed.”

“So, can you get us out?” Ryan asked in a demanding tone.

“Yes.”

“How?” Surge asked.

“Can you still generate plasma?” Kim asked Shego.

As a demonstration Shego lit her right hand. She also flipped Kim off.

"Perfect," Kim nodded. Then she moved away from the computer console and said, “Come here.”

Kim knelt and pried a small panel off the wall. Inside was a very orderly, very incomprehensible, array of wires and devices.

“See that blue box,” she pointed. When Shego touched it she said, “Yes, that's it. First I need you to slice that end of the main cable free.”

Shego easily cut it with a glowing finger. Kim then tugged the slack out of some of the interior wires, and stripped the wires on the edge of the open panel. She rewired them and then stepped back.

“Now,” she said to Shego. “Send as much energy as you can through the cable.”

“And this accomplishes what?” Shego asked.

“Power; we need power,” Kim said.

“I believe cooperation is in our best interest,” Drakken said.

“Doctor Dimwit,” Shego said. “I don't care what you believe or that you seem to have gotten a more cheerful disposition.  _I've_  got a five hundred year old hangover like you wouldn't believe.” Shego lit her hands regardless. They flared so brightly the others had to turn away.

Kim examined a monitor. After a while she said, “You're doing it, Shego. Just a few more ergs.”

“Yay, me,” Shego said flatly. “I'm still holding out for an explanation.”

“We all are, Shego,” Drakken said.

“Speak for yourself,” Surge said. “I just want to make it out alive, I could care less if anyone explains how.”

The chatter devolved into three shouting matches. Through it all Shego kept her plasma going.

Finally Kim said, “That should be enough.”

After a few keystrokes, a door that had formerly been closed and powerless, a door that by now they all knew they had to get through if they were ever going to leave, suddenly beeped active.

“Finally,” Ryan said, rushing for the door.

“Wait!” Kim shouted.

Ryan opened the door anyway, there was a flash of light and then he fell back into the room.

The most disconcerting thing wasn't the hole clean through his chest. It wasn't the smell of burnt flesh. It was his eyes. His still open, but very dead, eyes.

Shego pulled the body clear of the door. Drakken vomited. Then he closed Ryan's eyes.

Surge seemed to be trying to stop herself from hyperventillating.

Amy was just standing there in shock.

Hawk and Henry didn't seem to have processed what had happened yet.

Horatio closed the door.

Blok was the first to speak: “There's nothing you could do,” he said to Kim.

“I could have--” Kim started.

“You tried to warn him,” Blok said.

“I could have warned everyone beforehand,” Kim said. “I was just so caught up in solving the problem that I didn't think... And now...”

“Nine people are still alive,” Hawk said. “Focus on that. We have nine people who need a way out.”

“He's right,” Shego said. “The problem isn't solved yet.”

Kim took a deep breath and then said, “Blok, you're up.”

“What do you need?”

“Getting power back on has given us what we need to get out but it's also reactivated the security systems,” Kim said.

“Obviously,” Shego said.

“You're the only one that the security can't stop,” Kim told Blok. “Through that door are more holding areas just like the ones you all came out of and at the end of those is a security room. You can shut down the security systems with the push of a button.”

“I'm not good with electronics,” Blok admitted.

“This will be simple. Press a button, nothing more,” Kim said.

“Ok,  _which_  button?”

“When you get to the end of the holding areas you'll be in a small room with a console that looks almost exactly like this.” She gestured to the console she'd been using.

“That has a lot of buttons.”

“None of them matter,” Kim said. “The buttons that do matter will be here,” Kim pointed to an empty spot above the keyboard. “There will be a blue one, a green one, a yellow one, and a red one. All you have to do is press the blue one.”

“Just press the blue button?” Blok said uncertainly.

“It's just that simple,” Kim said. “The hard part is getting to it. Any of the rest of us would probably die, you should be able to take any punishment the security system can dish out.”

“Should?” Shego asked suspiciously.

“Should,” Kim said. Then, turning her attention from everyone but Blok, added, “So don't take your time. It's a straight line, just keep on running through the holding areas and going through the doors at the ends until you find yourself in a room that isn't a holding area.”

“And then hit the blue button?” Blok asked.

“Yes,” Kim said.

Blok stood in front of the door, transformed to his stone form and said, “I'm ready.”

Hawk hit the button to open the door while carefully avoiding putting himself in the path of the defenses in the next room.

Blok disappeared through the door, which Hawk quickly closed behind him.

“What now?” Amy asked.

“Now we wait,” Kim said, returning to her console.

“Princess, I've been out for a day and haven't eaten. I'm cranky, I'm pissed off, and I'm not in the mood to wait,” Shego said.

“I'm happy you made it,” Kim said.

“Yay,” Shego said in a voice that indicated anything but joy.

“We can monitor his progress from here,” Kim said, indicating the console. “He's making good time.”

“In lunar gravity his stone form probably weighs about as much as the average human does on earth,” Drakken said. “He's still got as much mass to move to fight inertia, but when it comes to gravity he's never had it so easy before.”

“Fascinating,” Shego said, again in a voice that indicated her feelings didn't match her words.

“Is he holding up?” Surge asked.

“Impossible to tell,” Kim said, “but he's not slowing down.”

“So how did they get you, Princess?” Shego asked.

“They stabbed me in the back,” Kim said. “Literally and figuratively.”

“I know the feeling,” Shego said.

“I tried to give you a way out,” Kim said. “You wouldn't take it.”

“You're blaming this on me?” Shego shouted.

“No,” Kim told her, looking down. “And I'm happy to see you again.”

“And we wouldn't have gotten this far without you, Shego,” Amy added.

“Hooray for me,” Shego huffed.

“Let's remember we're all here together now,” Drakken suggested.

“What did they do to him?” Shego asked.

“What?” Kim responded, confused.

“Since when is Dr. D all for making nice with Kim Possible?” Shego asked.

Kim returned to her console. She quickly pulled up Drakken's file, read it over, and said, “Nothing.”

Shego just gave her a look.

“Well, nothing they didn't do to the rest of us,” Kim said. “It looks like they had some ham handed attempts at mind control but the cryo bed's hardwired programming stopped any of them from working. He just got the equivalent of therapy sessions.”

“Five hundred years of them,” Hawk said.

“Well they don't seem to have affected the rest of us much,” Kim said.

“You do know I'm standing here while you talk about me, right?” Drakken asked.

“Sorry, Drakken,” Kim said.

“Actually I find it fascinating,” Drakken said, “and I do confess that I care much less about the people who laughed at me at university.”

“Yay, therapy,” Shego said with much sarcasm.

There was a beep on the console.

“The security system should be off,” Kim said, then she looked around for something to throw into the next room to trip the motion sensors.

Shego realized what Kim was doing and casually cut a piece of metal from the wall with a plasma encased finger.

Kim opened the door and Shego tossed it in. Nothing happened.

“So...” Surge said.

“Dr. D, why don't you go in there and check?” Shego said.

“Not funny, Shego,” Kim said. Then she walked into the room herself. Nothing happened. “It's safe.”

The eight of them made their way through the holding areas, trying not to look at the cry beds and their deceased occupants, until they reached Blok.

“Good work,” Kim said.

“It was nothing,” Blok said.

“How long until we're free?” Surge asked.

“Now is when we find out,” Kim said. Approaching the console. “This is a guard station so we have more control from here.”

After a few silent moments she showed the others a map of the lunar surface.

“We're here,” Kim pointed to one of two structures on the map. “There's not much here. Cryo beds, a few storage closets, and a tapped out power plant. We need to get here,” she pointed at another point on the map.

“That's a long way through a vacuum,” Hawk said.

“It's the only way,” Kim said. “This facility is just a prison, that one is an actual base. A base for people who would travel back to earth.”

“So... transportation?” Surge asked.

“Hopefully, but we have to get there first,” Kim said. The map zoomed in to show just the prison, “This is a warehouse of all the possessions they took from prisoners,” she pointed at one room back the way they had come, “we'll stop there first.”

“Kimmie, that door doesn't open,” Shego said. “I don't think it's locked; it just doesn't open.”

“It will now that it has power,” Kim responded. Shego shrugged. Kim continued, “Once we've got our stuff back, we'll head out,” she pointed to an exit in the section none had been in yet. “There are space suits here,” she pointed at a storage locker. “If we're lucky there will be a vehicle.”

“And if we're not?” Surge asked, unable to keep the fear from her voice.

“If not then we'll have to walk.”

“It's over two miles to the other facility,” Hawk said.

“There's no other choice,” Kim said. “Unless you want to wait here and die of hypoxia we need to reach the other facility.”

“You always were a ray of sunshine,” Shego said flatly.

The group headed back the way they had come. Someone gasped as they passed Ryan's body, but no one, not even the one who had done it, was sure who.

The door to the “Personal Effects Vault” was made of thick and heavy metal. Drakken shuddered to think what it must have cost to move it to the moon. Shego looked ruefully at melted sections where she'd tried to force her way through earlier, before she decided to conserve her plasma.

Kim just smiled.

It was Horatio who tapped in the code to open the door.

\---

The vault again drove home how many had been left to die on Luna-1. It seemed to stretch on forever. Nothing but numbered boxes on shelves.

“Dehumanizing, isn't it?” Shego said.

“What?” Blok asked.

“They couldn't even be bothered to use our names,” Shego said. “Just … cell numbers.” She pulled a box off the shelf and opened it. “This is me. Zero-Zero-One-A. That's all I was to them. A serial number.”

“I'm used to being a specimen number,” Hawk said.

“Things got a lot worse after you guys left the scene,” Henry added. “In the end we were worth less than nothing.”

“That explains why they'd rather see us die than be released,” Shego said as she rummaged through the box.

When everyone started to look for their own belongings, Kim said, “You don't have to limit yourselves to just your things. No one else is going to be using this stuff.”

“I daresay most of them would appreciate their things being used to help those who opposed putting them into this death trap,” Drakken said.

Kim collapsed.

Shego was the first to her side, “You ok?” she asked while helping the young woman up. Soon everyone was around her.

Kim mumbled something too softly for it to be heard.

“What was that, Red?” Blok asked.

“It was never supposed to be a death trap!” Kim shouted. Then she started sobbing. “It was supposed to be a more humane solution than current prisons. No abuse, no gangs, no violence. Everyone kept safe and the only side effect would be people working out their issues in their sleep.” The sobbing turned to dry heaves. “Everyone was supposed to win.”

“Kim,” Shego said, a hard edge in her voice, “You didn't do this. Cyclops did. She overrode  _your_  fail safes to kill all those people. None of this is on you.” Shego paused for a moment. “If you give up on us now, though,  _that_  will be on you.”

Kim looked up at Shego and said, “Sorry.”

“Everyone's stressed,” Shego said.

“I'm sorry for everything.”

“Get us back to earth alive and you can consider yourself forgiven,” Shego said in a softer voice.

Amy had already started looking through her box, and Kim pulled the next box in line off the shelf without even looking at the number. She figured the numbering scheme was simple. The first prisoner, put in cryo before the prison even existed, was Shego. The second was Amy. Kim herself was the third. She'd be 003-A.

When she opened the box all that was in it was her wristwatch.

“Too bad, Kimmie, looks like you're stuck with that fashion disaster,” Shego said, gesturing at Kim's all white clothing. The expected sarcasm was there, but possibly also a bit of sympathy.

“Actually, I may have found some help,” Kim said, hope returning to her voice.

“We've been here for centuries, what do you think that little--” Shego started.

The device chirped.

Kim hit one of the buttons and for a moment very small writing appeared on the watchface. “Spankin',” Kim said, then she hit one button twice.

“So what did you just do, princess?” Shego asked.

“I found out that my car is still online, and the AI is booting up. I told her to come here once all systems are online.”

“You told you  _car_  to come to the  _moon_?” Surge asked.

“I've seen it,” Blok said. “It does fly.”

“And it could reach us on Mars if it needed to,” Kim said.

“Except no one gassed it up in a very long time,” Shego said.

“Jade doesn't run on gas,” Kim said, “and she's been in a kind of mechanical stasis since GJ turned on me.” Kim's voice turned dark, “Telling her to go into it and wait for me was the last thing I managed to do before GJ took me down.” Then her voice returned to a more matter of fact tone: “Unless something very heavy fell on her, Jade can get to us without difficulty.”

“That's your plan?” Shego asked.

“No.” Kim said. “That's my backup plan. The primary plan remains the same. We take whatever is useful from this room, get to the exit, and make our way to the lunar base.”

The group again separated, everyone searching for their own belongings. Shego and Amy found spots to change into their own clothes. Kim randomly opened boxes and looked inside to see if she could find anything useful.

\---

They could have searched the vault for ages, but none of them wanted to stay longer than they had to. It quickly became apparent that weapons and advanced technology had not been stored with other personal effects so the only truly useful items they found were things that had been overlooked, like Kim's watch.

When they left Surge was dressed in her own clothes, the t-shirt and jeans typical of a woman in her early twenties in 2018, and a long coat: a duster enhanced with nanotechnology to heat or cool its occupant and change color and texture. Currently she had it in pink suede.

Drakken was in his usual blue suit.

Amy was in her standard getup, this turtleneck two tone purple, but instead of her own glasses she'd found a pair that could shift to match her prescription, zoom, and show various non-visible spectra.

Shego hadn't located anything of particular use in any of the other boxes, but she surprised everyone but not changing into her jumpsuit but instead a simple tank top with green slacks.

Hawk took none of his own clothes, they were just what he had thrown on while fleeing Global Justice. He'd found a dress shirt and trousers that he deemed “passable”.

Blok was wearing beat up jeans, a black tank top, and a red leather vest that honored his favorite fictional gang.

Horatio and Henry both wore unremarkable t-shirts and jeans, though Horatio's t-shirt seemed like it might be fitted for a woman. Henry had found a navigational wristband. It had a compass, had a GPS receiver, contained maps of the entire planet, and promised to be able to preform celestial navigation via stored star charts. All of it was useless when one wasn't on the earth, of course.

Newly equipped they all headed back to the guard station.

Kim returned to the console and started typing in commands, “I'm trying to channel oxygen out of the areas we're leaving and into the ones we'll be traveling through,” she explained. “But there's not a lot to work with.”

The trip to the airlock was uneventful. The space suits were in the locker like Kim had said. There were more than they needed and Shego scavenged extra oxygen canisters from the unnecessary ones.

“Once we're in the suits we need to keep our breathing even and take it slow,” Kim said. “If there isn't transportation outside we'll need to walk the two miles.”

“Hop.” Hawk said.

“What?” Kim asked.

“The low gravity combined with the loose regolith on the lunar surface makes walking difficult at best,” Hawk said.

“It's hard enough to walk in here,” Surge complained. They all knew it was true, not one of them hadn't had difficulty with pushing off the ground too hard.

“Astronauts found that the best way to move around is to hop,” Hawk told everyone.

“Ok, if there's no transportation we'll need to hop a long way,” Kim said. “It's important that we conserve our air if we're going to make it. Once the suits are on I recommend the only talking we do is to confirm that the suits are working. After that: silence.”

When they were in the spacesuits and could hear each other only through the built in radios Kim said, “Kim; suit secure.”

“It works,” Shego said.

“Drakken. Suit is working.”

“Surge. I'm still breathing.”

“Blok. I'm good.”

“Hawk. I'm cool.”

"Oh, the air tickles my nose," Amy said.

Shego rolled her eyes.

“Horatio; suit intact.”

"Henry. I'm fine."

Shego looked at Kim then said, "Okay, we did roll call. Can we go now?"

"Everyone grab a spare tank," Kim said, then opened walked to the airlock.

The computer in the airlock had information the internal computers didn't.

“Damn, no transportation,” Kim said. "Don't forget. Stay calm, breathe evenly, and we should be fine."

When everyone was piled into the airlock, Kim shut the interior door and opened the exterior door. It was their first glimpse of where they truly were.

The barren gray moonscape stretched in all directions. Kim oriented herself toward the other facility, but couldn't see anything but more moon.

She knew, intellectually, that it was because the horizon on the moon was closer, making the facility a half mile over the horizon instead of nearly a mile closer than the horizon as it would be on earth. She knew that. But it still felt hopeless to step out onto the moon's surface when she couldn't even see where she was going.


	3. Moon Walk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the survivors set out across the Lunar surface, they make an unpleasant discovery.

Surge had no idea why some were making such a big deal about a two mile walk. She just wanted to be home and as far as she was concerned she could fly two miles if that was all it took. Even so, she'd studied Socrates in high school. She knew the importance of knowing that you don't know. She knew nothing about moon walks, so if people who knew more than she did were acting like the walk would be a big deal, she'd assume it would be a big deal.

She'd also stay silent about her lack of knowledge. There was no need to broadcast her ignorance.

It was when Blok, the one who had adapted the best to lunar gravity, fell right in front of her almost immediately, that she began to understand how long of a way two miles could be.

* * *

Blok stifled the urge to swear and watched the moon's surface come up and hit him.

He'd taken into account the gravity, he'd adjusted to the need to push off the ground less hard, he'd reconciled the bizarre feeling of needing to fight inertia just as much to move things that now only weighed an eighth as much as he was used to. He simply hadn't been ready for the dust.

Moon dust, he discovered, really was dust. Not sand, certainly not soil, not like anything he'd walked on before. Fine powder created by the pulverizing impacts that had scarred the moons surface.

He couldn't count on it to support the forces he was exerting on it just by walking lightly. It just... slipped out from under him.

* * *

Hawk saw Blok go down and tried to remember his own advice: Don't walk; hop.

He managed to not fall and moved in the direction Kim was leading them.

* * *

Shego smirked as Drakken and Amy joined Blok in the dust. It took a lot of effort, using muscles and training usually reserved for her acrobatic fights, but she managed to stay upright herself. As soon as she was clear of the facility she took a look around.

And promptly gasped.

* * *

Henry was taking in the moonscape with awe. He barely noticed his three fallen comrades, and he certainly didn't notice Shego's gasp.

He'd dreamed of going to the moon. He'd always known it was impossible. Sure, if he worked hard, discovered hidden talents, and got very, very lucky he might have become an astronaut, but he didn't care about space. He was interested in setting foot on an alien planet. He followed the Mars probes with interest; he watched every documentary on the moon missions he could get his hands on. He'd heard of the view, the sense of wonder it caused, he knew the phrase “Magnificient Desolation” he'd looked at more pictures than most people ever would and poured over each as if it were the most important document in the world. It was all nothing compared to seeing it with his own eyes.

* * *

Kim only paid attention to the three who fell enough to make sure that they weren't hurt and that they didn't damage their now-ancient suits. She was sure they'd all fall many times before they reached the base. She barely made note of the fact that someone gasped.

She was mostly trying not to think. She was trying to learn the necessary motions to move efficiently on the moon and then, she hoped, she could repeat them mindlessly, mechanically, until she arrived at the base. She worried that if she thought too much she might stop thinking she could do anything and start being overcome with doubt.

She was only broken out of her own thoughts when Shego said, “Kim,” in a voice that, she thought, was a bit shaky.

“Shego,” Kim said, “We need to conserve our air.”

“Ok, fine,” Shego said, not conserving air. “But, fearless leader, you wanna tell me what's wrong with that picture?”

Kim tried to stop, but just ended up falling forward. When she finally managed to get control of herself again she was covered in regolith and annoyed. She stood up and carefully turned toward Shego.

In addition to Amy, Blok, and Drakken, Henry and Surge now also showed signs of having fallen, though all were back on their feet. Shego was pointing, with her entire arm, to something in the sky.

Kim wasn't sure what could be worth looking at. With no atmosphere there was no weather, there was also no color. The sky was simply black. Lunar day wasn't darker than an earth day, if anything it was brighter, and so any starlight was impossible to discern. Their eyes simply weren't adjusted to pick up light so dim.

The sky should have been completely black, save for the sun, which Shego was not pointing toward.

When Kim did follow Shego's outstretched arm she realized that there was one celestial body in the sky she had completely forgotten to account for: Earth.

“Oh my God,” Kim said when she found her voice.

* * *

Hawk stared at the earth in the black sky. He couldn't make out any recognizable landmass. He wasn't even sure which end was north. But he did know that it was supposed to be a blue and green marble in the sky, not a mostly white one.

“It was not like that when I left it,” he said.

* * *

Henry looked at the object in the sky for a long time. The white from the poles stretched what seemed to be impossibly far. He guessed that only about a third of the earth remained uncovered.

After he heard Hawk speak he said, “It wasn't like that when any of us left it,” without really realizing he was speaking out loud.

As other members of the group turned to him, he added, “I was the last one taken,” in a small voice. Then he asked, “Right?”

No one answered.

* * *

Horatio finally bothered to pay attention to the topic of chatter, which he considered inherently wasteful as they had no idea how long the air in their 500 year old tanks would last and even less of an idea of how long it would take them to traverse the necessary distance given their—in his opinion, pathetic—progress so far, when he realized that it had stopped the eight other survivors from making any progress at all.

He stopped, which involved taking a tumble because he wasn't used to moving on the bare lunar surface any more than the rest of them, looked at the others, listened to their pointless prattle, and said, “Given the extinction of humanity, the current ice age hardly concerns us.” He didn't even take notice as all attention abruptly turned his way. “There's more than enough space for us to live in the equatorial temperate zone.”

He returned to hopping toward the unseen moon base that he hoped would be their salvation.

* * *

Surge was the first to respond. It was a broken voice: a whimper that had wanted to be a shout. “Extinct?”

* * *

Kim didn't fully process what Horatio had said until Surge repeated the main point: extinct. Kim didn't mean to shout. She didn't mean to sound hostile and antagonistic. She didn't even mean to speak. It just came out, “How could you possibly know that?”

Horatio's annoyed response of, “Weren't you the one who said we needed to conserve air?” did nothing to calm her down.

Her response was lost in a chorus of other voices.

* * *

Horatio was getting pissed off. Someone protested, “I was captured after you,” Drakken and Shego were discussing the carrying capacity of Earth in its present state. Amy and Surge were busy convincing each other that an ice age, however severe, couldn't possibly wipe out humanity. The others were a cacophony.

When he couldn't take it any more he shouted, “AIR!”

That silenced the noise for a bit.

“We're using equipment that is five  _centuries_  old, we don't even know if it's reading right. We have no idea when it might fail now that it's finally being put to use. None of us are exactly good at moon walking—hell, look at how little progress we've made so far,” he pointed back to the prison which loomed disturbingly close. “Our best hope of survival is to shut up and keep on moving so we get to safety before anything has a chance to go wrong; you lot seem intent on standing still and bickering.”

He made a point of putting more effort into hopping away.

* * *

When Kim spoke it took everything she had to speak in a calm measured tone, but she did manage it. “How can you know the fate of humanity?” she asked.

“I'll tell you when we're somewhere with a better atmosphere,” Horatio said, not pausing in his hopping toward the unseen base.

“Why not tell us now?” Shego asked. The tone of her voice made Kim crack a smile despite herself.

* * *

Horatio sighed. He stopped which once again was inelegant and left him tumbling across the lunar surface. When he was still and standing he carefully pointed himself to the rest of the group and said, “Because I want to live.”

He couldn't see their faces, he wasn't sure what they were thinking, but he had a feeling that that wouldn't satisfy them and he knew he couldn't survive alone. “Until I'm sure it won't get me killed, I'm not giving needless exposition.”

That didn't satisfy the crowd either. Surge asked, “Is the human race really extinct?”

There was fear in her voice. That probably wasn't good. Horatio decided to try to offer some kind of hope. “Well,” he said, “there's us now.”

That failed to accomplish anything. There was more prattle.

Why couldn't they understand? Their suits had never been designed to last this long. For all they knew their air tanks were leaking. Outside of those suits was death incarnate in the form of concentrated  _nothing_. They were standing at the edge of a precipice, a misstep could mean that they'd all die, and they were getting worked up over people who were already dead and long since buried—time and natural processes had seen to that.

Worse than all of that was the fact that he couldn't see where this was headed. He never liked relying on looking ahead, it felt strange and wrong, but at least it was there for him. But right now the situation was all wrong, and the time horizon too far. He had as little of an idea of what was coming as a mundane. It was … disturbing.

Since he was standing still he decided to try again. Still nothing of value. Well, almost nothing.

He interrupted the prattle by saying, “Kim-car inbound in two minutes.”

* * *

Shego was the one who finally put an end to discussion, “Tight-lipped grumpy-pants is right. We need to keep going regardless of what may, or may not, be going on on earth.”

Shego started hopping toward the base, or at least in what she thought was in the right direction. Kim soon followed, and pretty soon they were all going.

* * *

Surge resumed the trek with the rest, but she obviously hadn't been silenced. “You can't just say something like, 'Humanity is gone,' and expect people not to react, you know,” she said to Horatio.

Horatio said nothing but thought that not only could he do it, he did do it. It wasn't his fault the others overreacted to the news.

“Now that we're moving, like you wanted,” Surge continued, “could you at least tell us how you know? Or how you think you--”

Horatio looked ahead again and said, “Kim-car in thirty seconds.”

Before more words were spoken, the car was visible on the horizon and, just as he had predicted, it arrived at their location thirty seconds from when he spoke.

* * *

“It's Jade! She made it,” Kim all but shouted as the small purple coupe landed on the lunar surface beside her. Fine regolith was kicked up by the landing, and the way it failed to form into clouds again hammered home the fact that outside of her ancient space suit was vacuum. Kim had seen the car land too many times to count, on all manner of surface, and it never looked quite like that.

“How is this even possible?” Surge asked.

“Check the name,” Kim told her with a smugness she hadn't felt in quite some time. “Jade, do you hear me?” Kim asked the car.

“... have your frequency now, Kimberly,” the AI's almost-human sounding voice came over Kim's radio. “Where have you been? My internal chronometer--”

“Should say that it's the two thousand five hundred twenty ninth year Anno Domini, or thereabouts,” Horatio cut in, sounding somewhat bored. Kim decided she wasn't even going to try to understand him.

“Did you detect any life—any human life on your way here?” Kim asked.

“Waste of air,” Horatio said.

“I was in Japan,” Jade said. “There was nothing in my immediate vicinity, but I didn't scan beyond that. I came straight to you.”

“You did the right thing,” Kim told Jade. She knew that the AI attempted to learn from mistakes, and she didn't want it learning that unrelated fact finding was more important than coming when called, especially given that the type of call she used was one that she generally reserved for emergencies.

“So, what now?” Shego asked. “Miracle car, or no, we're still on the moon, princess. I don't think that thing can carry all of us.”

“No,” Kim said. “But it can get me to the base faster than walking. You guys keep headed in the right direction.” She looked into the car, used an electronic map on the dash to orient herself, then pointed to show which direction that was. She felt pretty good about the fact that it was almost exactly the direction they had been going. Even without the correction they'd have made it to their destination.

“I'll go see if I can find anything that can be used to carry all of you over,” she said as she got into the car.

“What if you run into trouble,” Drakken asked. “Shouldn't you have some backup?”

Drakken being concerned for her well being was almost too surreal for Kim to take, but she managed to answer levelly, “I'll be fine. Jade is more than a match for anything we might meet.”

“You hope,” Shego said. “Just don't pause to sight-see.”

Kim smiled, closed the door without comment, and the car rose and flew away.

* * *

Surge watched as the seemingly impossible car disappeared over the horizon and a sinking feeling overtook her. “She won't leave us … will she?”

Drakken laughed. It was the first time Surge had heard anyone laugh since she woke up. Then Drakken explained, “There is one thing you can count on, and that is: Kim Possible will always do what's right.”

“Isn't she the one that froze us?” Surge asked, not bothering to hide the bitterness in her voice.

* * *

Horatio didn't even bother to look ahead. “She'll be back,” he said. His concern was no less die than Surge's had been, and he voiced it, after a fashion, “If we conserve our air we might even live to see it.”

Everyone fell mercifully silent as they resumed their trek.

* * *

Surge grew to hate the silence. She was full of questions and getting no answers. With nothing but the sound of other people breathing she was forced to concentrate on hopping toward their destination. All eight of them fell. A lot. Horatio's reminder that the suits they were doing the falling in were five hundred years old did nothing for her peace of mind.

Finally she asked, “If there's no one else left then what's the point?”

Shego said, “The point is to live.” After a pause she added, “Besides, he still hasn't said what he's basing his outlandish claim on. So ignore him.”

Surge couldn't ignore him. For whatever reason, she believed Horatio. “If humanity ends with us, what does it matter if we die here or on earth?”

“It matters to  _me_ ,” Shego said, “whether  _I_  die today or decades from now.”

“I understand,” Surge said, “It's just--”

“There's us now,” Horatio said. “Humanity doesn't have to end.”

“I hope you're not talking about some kind of breeding program,” Shego said angrily.

Horatio stopped. Surge was getting used to Horatio's inability to stop with anything resembling grace, so it didn't surprise her when he ended up tumbling forward. What did surprise her was that he didn't seem to be making any effort to halt the tumbling. When it ended on its own he got up slowly and faced Shego. Surge couldn't see his face and the space suit made it difficult to read body language, but the impression she was getting was utter, horrified, shock. So much so it overcame the inexpressiveness of the space suit.

Hawk asked, “You ok?” but other than that everyone was silent.

Finally Surge asked, “Well what did you mean?” No response. “How are the nine of us supposed to revive humanity?”

When he responded his voice was quiet, “The technology exists to repopulate the species without anyone needing to get pregnant if they don't want to.” He paused a beat. “Without anyone needing to get pregnant at all.” There was a larger pause. “If we ever reached the point where we forced people to,” he sputtered, “to... to … you know, in order to save the species then it would be better if we let humanity die.”

There was another silence.

“The idea that we'd do otherwise is horrific,” Horatio added. Then he resumed his hopping.

* * *

Blok wanted to break the uneasy silence that followed, but he wasn't sure how. Finally he said, “It wouldn't work anyway, nine people isn't enough genetic variation to perpetuate a species.”

“Actually,” Horatio said, for the first time sounding like he was actually interested in talking, “The Laysan duck hit a low point of an effective population of 7 and it was on the way back when I was taken.”

Blok was pleased when this started a conversation about genetics that lacked doom, gloom, and horror.


	4. Air and Exposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reaching the moon base leads to the survivors getting some more answers, none of which they like.

"The information will not change if you look at fourteen times instead of thirteen," Jade said.

"I know, I know," Kim said, "but it's... it's impossible."

"None of the data I have collected indicates the laws of physics have been defied."

"How can humanity be gone!?"

"That conclusion is also not supported by the information I have. It merely indicates that-"

"There are no transmissions of any kind, no functional ground stations or satellites, no direct evidence of continuing human activity at all."

"And nothing to indicate a total lack of human activity either, Kimberly," Jade said. "I also have no proof that the mid-Atlantic ridge still exists, yet it is highly probable that it does."

"Horatio seemed sure," Kim said.

"But did not reveal how he arrived at his claim," Jade said.

"Until we are able to survey the planet in some detail it would be premature to reach a conclusion."

"I hate not knowing," Kim told the AI. The speed at which they were moving didn't help her mood. "Any results on your internal scan?"

"I believe that I have isolated the cause of the failure and that it should be quite simple to fix, if we find appropriate supplies."

"They're probably wondering if I abandoned them," Kim said.

"I apologize for the inconvenience, Kimberly," Jade said. "However, until the containment field is repaired it would be unwise for me too turn the spindle faster than its idle speed. It is already interfering with my sensors and at a higher setting it would begin to affect your health."

"I know!" Kim snapped. "Sorry."

"Apology accepted, Kimberly."

"I just- I expected to be there and back in a matter of minutes."

"I understand, Kimberly."

For a time there was silence, then Kim said, "I thought the stasis mode was meant to halt any decay; how did the the containment field fail?"

"While the stasis field does significantly slow any degradation of my systems, I was not designed to be left in standby for centuries," Jade said. "The containment field generator is one of the most complex items in my inventory. That it failed is not even statistically unlikely. It is concerning that it failed without warning."

x x x

It had been more than concerning when it happened. Jade was programmed for safety first and explanations at a distant third. Thus when she had rapidly decelerated it came without any warning to Kim whatsoever.

Not that Kim objected per se; she knew intellectually that if Jade had waited for her approval the containment field would have fully collapsed before the flying car slowed itself and thus the options remaining would be to exert the energy necessary to slow the car without containment, to enter the base at nearly full speed and thus either crash into a building or shoot straight through, or to slow down through a semi-contained crash landing on the lunar surface.

None of those were nearly as desirable as slowing down before the containment field collapsed.

It had, however, been disconcerting and the car was now flying over the surface of the moon at what amounted to an idling speed. Only a small piece of forward momentum had been retained -little enough that breaking wouldn't require dangerous energy levels- and the only ongoing power expenditure related to locomotion was being used to keep the car off the ground.

The wait made Kim want to scream.

"I've finished my internal diagnostic and can report with 99.375 percent confidence that I have identified and compensated for all malfunctioning sensors," Jade said.

"Yay," Kim said with a lack of enthusiasm most would associate with Shego.

"Therefore, it is highly improbable that any other system will fail without warning," Jade continued. "I apologize for not performing this check before I arrived."

"There's nothing to apologize for, Jade," Kim said. "You weren't programmed to run extra diagnostics on the diagnostic equipment without being asked to do so."

"Regardless, I have updated my protocols to include such diagnostics after any prolonged standby."

"That's good thinking, Jade," Kim tried to sound enthusiastic, but knew she failed. The AI was doing well in a situation it had never been programmed to handle, but Kim was too stressed to give it the positive feedback she thought it deserved. There was simply too much on her mind.

The AI didn't comment on her forced praise, Kim wasn't sure if it had failed to detect that it had been forced, or simply concluded that the fact wasn't worth discussing.

There was a silence that seemed to go on for hours, though in reality Kim knew that it was probably minutes at most. Kim's mind slipped into a cycle where it calculated how much time it felt had passed, then how much time it thought had actually passed, then compared the two, then repeated with the values updated to account for the time spent in thinking about it. It was not improving her mood in the least.

"While my sensor capacity is limited by the containment field-"

"Not being operational," Kim said. "What do you have?"

"Thermal readings are now becoming distinct."

"Show me."

The problem with the sensors wasn't that they weren't picking up what they should, but rather that they were picking up things they shouldn't. The signal was fine, but there was too much noise to make it much out.

Kim had already looked over initial results, but they were impossible to interpret. A blob somewhat warmer than the rest of the lunar surface. Now, through the static, Kim was able to begin to make out multiple smaller blobs that had made up the larger blob, or at least she thought she was.

"What do you make of it?" she asked Jade.

"With data this choppy, I'm just as prone to pareidolia as a human being, Kimberly."

"I understand that; I want a second opinion, not conclusive answers."

"Have you formulated a first opinion?"

Kim examined the small screen on the dashboard again, then said, "I don't like it."

"An interesting opinion," Jade replied. Kim wondered if she detected a hint of snark. The AI was certainly  _capable_  of that, and if it were to decide to be snarky the voice synthesizer would have little difficulty in producing the necessary intonation, but Kim wasn't sure if that had happened or she was just imagining it.

"It looks to me like the results we're seeing are entirely a result of the base heating at a different rate than the moon's natural surface in the sunlight."

"I concur," Jade said.

"It also looks like the reason that it took, and is still taking, so long to come into focus is because there's some kind of debris with similar thermal properties littering the site," Kim said. She sighed. "The debris, if it really exists, would give off readings similar to the buildings, thus explaining why it's harder to see the separation between buildings than it should be. It would also indicate that the site had been subject to some form of destruction."

"That is consistent with the data."

"But do you think it's true?"

"I am no more confident than you of the the results so far."

x x x

"Where the hell is she?" Shego asked the universe. The universe didn't respond.

Instead of one the jerks she was surrounded by responded. "Probably not very far from where she was the last time you asked."

Shego resisted the urge to turn to Hawk and instead snapped, "You saw how fast she flew out of here! She should have been back ages ago."

"I think we've established that," Hawk said.

The only thing that prevented Shego from launching plasma at him was the knowledge it would burn straight through her suit if she did.

Before Shego could think of a properly biting response, Surge asked, "You're sure that she didn't abandon us?"

Shego could hear the fear in the young woman's voice and her degree in child psychology kicked in.

x x x

Horatio had given up on trying to get the others to conserve oxygen. It was a losing battle and used up too much air to be worth the effort. He was telling himself that once they got to earth, if they got to earth, he'd leave them all behind and become a hermit.

He knew it wasn't true, but at the moment a life of isolation seemed like a wonderful concept.

A strange name brought him out of his daydream. Shego had said, "Yeah, Sarah, I'm sure." Who was Sarah? He rewound the conversation a bit and concluded that that was Surge's real name. He filed away the information and returned to ignoring the other surviving humans.

He needed to conserve his power, they were too removed from anything. He wasn't used to having resources so far from hand and kept on doing things with energy that he didn't have to spare. He shouldn't have rewound. It wasn't worth it.

He just thought about making a home in some nice deserted place where no one and nothing had the power of speech. He'd make friends with the birds or something. A small mammal at most. None of this incessant chattering.

x x x

Henry tried to focus on the beauty of the moon, and the fact that he was really walking on it, and ignore the fact that this could be where he died. It wasn't easy. It was easy enough to keep the wonder kindled inside of him, but pushing out the thoughts of possible death was much harder.

The sudden change in Shego's tone caught his attention, and he found it somewhat reassuring to listen to her speaking to Surge. He wondered where this had come from. The usually acerbic villain, a legend in the community as much for her attitude as for her skill, was actually being kind, gentle, and quite calming.

x x x

Hawk was amazed at how fast Shego's attitude had changed. He didn't care that it made no sense and went against everything he'd ever heard about her, he was just glad that she'd stopped complaining. At any other time the almost instant one eighty would have given him whiplash, but right now he was happy that some switch seemed to have flipped in her.

Besides, they all needed a little reassurance right now.

x x x

Drakken and Amy were discussing the reconstruction of civilization. Drakken wanted to make sure whatever they created was named after him. Amy was sure that she could create a hybrid race capable of flourishing in whatever environments they found on earth.

x x x

"Something's coming into view," Blok said the instant he was sure the shape on the horizon wasn't his imagination.

There was a spurt of excited chattering, coupled with lots of relief, until Surge asked, "How far does that mean we've gone?" Blok had no idea, but he did notice that Drakken, Henry, and Shego suddenly stopped talking.

Maybe it wasn't as good news as he had thought.

x x x

The silence spread to everyone and Surge felt a sinking feeling. "What?" Surge asked, now sure she didn't want to know the answer. It felt as if her stomach were turning into lead.

"You... might not want to know," Henry said.

She spun and looked back, knowing that it would cause her to tumble across the ground. They'd made real, noticeable progress. They were still a lot closer to the prison than the installation on the horizon. A lot.

"Oh God," she said. "Oh God." she repeated. No one else said anything. "We really are going to die out here, aren't we?"

x x x

Kim was vaguely aware of her name being called. Once. Twice. A third time. She couldn't seem really process it though.

It was the fourth, "Kimberley," that snapped her into a full alertness.

"What happened?" She asked Jade.

"You drifted into a sleep-like state," Jade said. "As we were making little progress I didn't wake you."

Kim wasn't sure how she felt about Jade making that decision for her, but another matter seemed more important, "Why did you wake me now."

"I have prepared a report," Jade said as the screen in the dashboard lit up. "Also, it will be time for you to get out soon."

Kim looked around, "We're here," she said with a mixture of surprise and annoyance.

"Almost," Jade said. "I will run my final breaking cycle soon."

"We're already at the base, and you didn't tell me," Kim said as she looked out of the car.

"I began waking you when we arrived at the outer edge," Jade said. "It required some persistence to rouse you."

The car was moving slowly enough that Kim could get out without much difficulty, though it would still be bad if it hit something. The moon base had once been a sprawling complex, it was currently in ruins.

"What happened here?"

"I have prepared a report," Jade said. The screen on the dashboard flashed.

Kim read through it quickly, then repeated what she thought was the key point, "Most of the damage due to being smashed with large metal objects."

"With some indications of energy weapons, yes," Jade said in confirmation.

Kim looked at the damage in more detail. "So Lorwardians," Kim said.

"That is my assessment," Jade said.

"They defeated humanity once," Kim said with a sinking feeling. "Why not a second time?"

The aliens had only been defeated through the combined efforts of herself, Ron, Shego, and Drakken. She, Shego, and Drakken had been incarcerated, leaving only Ron. Ron was prophesied to be the ultimate Monkey Master. Kim was well aware that "ultimate" meant "last". Certainly it would be difficult for there to be another one now that the magical Jade statues used to give Ron that power had been destroyed. Depending on when the Lowardians returned they could have found the earth entirely undefended.

If that were the case, then Lowardians, who had previously conquered the earth in "less time than it takes to order a pizza", probably could have done it again.

But that still left Kim with questions. The Lorwardians had come as conquerors, not exterminators. Why was there no evidence of a civilization if they'd returned?

x x x

Surge was the youngest member of the group. Based on that alone it was understandable that she'd be having trouble adapting. And it wasn't as if Horatio couldn't tell that she was simply giving voice to things that the others were thinking and feeling. He could recognize the sound of utter despair as well as the next person, or so he liked to think, but he was still having trouble dealing with the way she repeatedly needed to be reassured.

Yes, there was a decent chance they were all going to die horrible deaths, but dwelling on it wouldn't help and talking about it made things more difficult.

He tried to keep his mind anywhere  _but_  on the present. "Just imagine a nice little equatorial hermitage," he told himself. But it wasn't easy.

The others were all stretched thin. Shego had been on the verge of a breakdown before she took it upon herself to keep Surge vaguely close to stable, he was sure of that. Henry and Block had retreated entirely into themselves. He'd like to think that it was because they were trying to conserve oxygen, but he knew that they'd shown no evidence of doing so.

Drakken seemed to have lost the will to even complain. Amy's perennial cheerfulness seemed forced. Hawk's terse comments had taken on increasingly negative tones.

They were all falling apart, he was too, and as much as he hated to admit it even in the privacy of his own mind, he had no illusions that he might be able to make it out of this on his own. Once he got to earth, maybe. Before then, not a chance.

"Where the Hell is Possible?" was the question that was repeating in his mind. Unlike Surge, he didn't doubt that she'd be back if it were in her power to get back, but he was increasingly of the opinion that something had happened to her. What if the wonder car had simply exploded?

x x x

It took Shego a few moments to register that Blok had asked, "What the hell is that?"

When she looked up she saw a strange shape forming between them and the base. She didn't know what it was either, but she was sure of who it was immediately. "I swear I'm going to kick her ass the minute after she saves us."

x x x

Henry had fallen to the ground and screamed in joy. Several of the others were offering prayers of thanks. There were also sighs of relief and, Surge thought, one soft chuckle of muted joy from Horatio. For herself, she didn't know what she was feeling. It was as if she were floating. It wasn't the lighter lunar gravity, she'd gotten used to that, it was as if her entire mass had been erased.

The shape formed into the floating car dragging something behind it, a trail of dust rising and falling in it's wake.

"Sorry it took so long," she heard Kim say over her suit's radio. "First I had some car trouble, then I had some radio trouble."

The car slowed down and veered to one side, the thing it was towing didn't slow nearly as fast and soon the two had switched positions, and with the car facing away from them both slowed to a stop.

"And I stuck the landing!" the AI said. Surge smiled. Maybe they would live.

"Why would you program a computer to be arrogant?" Shego asked. Surge thought that a lot of life had returned to her voice.

"Let it be arrogant," Henry said. "Just get us out of here."

"What is this contraption?" Hawk asked as he examined the thing being towed by the car. Surge couldn't tell either. It looked to her like a smaller version of a Volkswagen Micro-bus, except it lacked an engine and only had wheels on one end.

"I'm not sure," Kim said, jumping out of the floating car. "A transport? Surveyor? The important thing is that it should seat at least six people, and Jade seats five, so we've got more than enough room to get everyone back to the base."

Kim opened the door and motioned for people to get in. As Surge did she heard Shego say, "Shotgun."

x x x

Hawk found he actually liked the bickering. It wasn't something he'd like to hear all the time, probably never again after today, but right now it was a reminder they were alive. He drifted from listening to pure thoughtless elation and back again.

"I really am sorry about leaving you waiting," Kim said.

"You should be," Shego said.

"Now, Shego," Drakken started, "there's no need-"

"My contract expired centuries ago and I didn't listen to you when you were my boss."

"I never really understood how the two of you managed to work together in the first place," Amy said.

"Badly," Surge laughed. "They worked together badly."

"I don't remember asking for your-" And then Shego stopped. Hawk's light mood ended when he saw what she had seen.

x x x

Surge was suddenly worried again. She, Horatio, Henry, and Blok were all in the 'bus' that was being towed. The seats faced away from the sides, and thus away from the windows. It seemed like a very bad design. What purpose did the windows serve if you couldn't look out of them? At the moment she wasn't interested in that, she was interested in what had stopped Shego mid-sentence.

"What the Hell?" Shego asked.

"I wanted to tell you but I couldn't get a word in edgewise," Kim said.

"We can't really see out of here that well," Blok said, and Surge mentally thanked him for giving voice to their concerns, but didn't say anything out loud for fear it would delay getting an answer about what was going on.

"You should be able to see momentarily," the AI said.

The bumpy ride in the 'bus' got worse for a few moments as they all shifted to get a look outside. All but Horatio, Surge noted.

Henry said, "Thank you, car."

"My name is Jade, human," Jade responded.

Surge looked out at the buildings of the lunar base as they came into view and noted that many of them appeared to have been smashed from above.

"Are those … people?" Drakken asked, and Surge tried to locate whatever he was talking about even though she didn't really want to see.

She saw them.

"Not anymore," she said as she tried not to vomit.

x x x

Shego had been trying to play nice, which was hardly a usual thing for her, and she'd had a growing headache for a while. Despite her best efforts, she was starting to lose her temper even before she asked, "Tight-lipped grumpy pants, is this what you were talking about when you said humanity had been wiped out," Shego asked, hoping she suppressed the shudder that tried to enter her voice.

For a moment there was no response and then she heard Surge say, "They can't see you shaking your head over a radio connection."

"No," Horatio said. His tone was somber. "These ones fled earth like rats from a sinking ship, but once they got here they found themselves ill prepared. They were going to die out on their own.

"They weren't Global Justice," he said; "don't let the uniforms fool you. They scavenged those the way they-"

Shego had had enough of him. "How the hell do you know any of this?" she shouted as much as asked.

"-scavenged everything else. Didn't even know we existed. If they did maybe they would have let us out and we could have helped them."

Shego did not like being ignored, "Stop telling us what you  _think_  happened and tell us where you're getting your information."

"When the Lowardians arrived and-"

At this point Shego couldn't take it any more. She screamed.

"-dealt this colony its killing blow they were already on the way to a lingering extinction anyway."

x x x

Surge had turned away from the window and was watching Horatio. The way he talked made her feel like he'd been there when it happened. That wasn't what interested her most though.

"What makes you think it was Lowardians?" Kim asked.

"Kimberly, the damage is consistent with a Lowardian attack," Drakken said.

"I know that," Kim said. "I want to why he thinks he knows that."

That wasn't what interested Surge either, before she could speak, Shego said, "I want to know why we're all listening to someone who won't tell us where he gets his information. I'm sick of his enigmatic prophet act!" Shego shouted.

Surge wished that she could offer comfort to Shego the way Shego had helped her, but she didn't know how. Instead she took the opportunity to say what she was wondering, "I want to know how he knew they were in Global Justice uniforms when no one said anything and he hasn't looked outside."

"Global Justice built the prison, it's not a stretch to assume they were the ones using the base," Shego said. "He's guessing."

"But he's right," Surge said. "Isn't he? They're not GJ."

She heard Kim sigh. "We think he's right."

x x x

"Why, Pumpkin?" Shego asked. "What makes you think he's right? I've been around him a hell of a lot longer than you have at this point and the only thing I've heard him say that seemed like it came from knowledge rather than BS was something about ducks."

"The Laysan duck," Hawk offered in a way that Shego knew was probably supposed to be helpful. She didn't care what his intent was. She growled.

"I don't care!" she shouted. "It doesn't matter what kind of duck it was; what matters is that knowing about ducks doesn't make one clairvoyant."

x x x

"We're here," the AI said as they came to a halt. Horiatio was up almost immediately, but Surge noticed that he seemed unsteady on his feet. He made his way to the door constantly supporting himself on the wall.

She followed him without comment.

Several times she thought he might fall over, not from the difficulty of walking on the moon, but from what she thought looked like either exhaustion or intoxication. She was sure he hadn't had anything to drink, but it didn't seem like he should be  _that_  exhausted.

x x x

"Shego, this isn't like you," Kim said. Shego was not one to lose her cool like this and Kim was starting to get worried.

"You don't get to tell me what is and isn't like me!" Shego shouted. "I've got a monster headache and I'm sick of people acting like they know things they don't."

"Jade, are your medical scanners online?" Kim asked quickly.

"No, Kim," Jade said. "But they can be."

"Turn them on, and scan Shego." Kim said.

"Now wait a minute," Shego said, "I don't-"

"Her O2 supply is dangerously low, Kim. She's likely already feeling the effects," Jade said. "Get her inside."

"No machine is telling me-" Shego started.

"Fine," Kim said. "I'll just keep all the air and food for myself."

Kim was fairly confident that she knew how to manipulate a disoriented Shego. Sure enough, a moment later Shego said, "Food? You're not stealing my food, princess."

x x x

"Are you sure you want to eat that?" Surge asked Horatio.

He'd gone for the bowl of fruit immediately, but had collapsed onto the ground taking the fruit bowl with him. Now he was tearing apart an orange.

"Why wouldn't I?" he asked her.

"Maybe because it's been left out for five hundred years."

"Five hundred and  _two_  years," Horatio said as if that somehow made things better. "But this room was in a vacuum since the first time this base was abandoned until Kim gave it air."

"Uh, huh," Surge said.

"It's perfectly preserved," Horatio said.

"That would be why it looks freakishly odd," Surge said. She wasn't touching the food until she was convinced it was safe.

"Admittedly sucking all of the air out of the room isn't the prettiest way to preserve something," Horatio said, "but I need food."

Surge flinched as a voice from behind startled her, "It's not safe to-"

Surge turned to see Kim's eyes going wide. "You found fruit?"

"Is it safe?" Surge asked.

"Uh..." Kim seemed lost for a moment. "Yeah, it should be safe," she said, visibly regrouping her thoughts. "How did you find fruit?"

Surge just looked to Horatio, who continued devouring oranges.

x x x

Surge and Kim helped a clearly spent Horatio into the room where the others were waiting.

"What happened to the clairvoyant?" Shego asked.

"Too much fact finding, not enough rest," he said.

Shego growled at him a bit. She did actually feel a bit sorry for how she'd acted before, and it proved that he'd been right about needing to conserve oxygen, but she didn't feel  _that_  sorry and, while her volume might have been louder than she thought appropriate, her sentiment remained.

"You said you'd explain once you got air," Shego said. "We have air. Explain."

"Do you know why Global Justice locked me up?" he asked.

"Espionage," Shego said. "So what?

He'd settled in front of a computer terminal, with Surge's help.

He typed something in and Surge said, "How the hell did you do that?"

Shego wasn't in the mood to cross the room and see what it was he did. "Do what?"

Kim leaned over and looked at the computer, "This is Dr. Director's account."

Sounds of shock spread around the room and Shego was getting annoyed at what she saw as undue fawning.

"So the spy knows another spy's login info," She said. "This is surprising why?"

"I didn't know it," Horatio said. "She's used this terminal. I just looked back and saw what she typed in."

"Looked back?" Kim asked.

x x x

"I can see the past," Horatio said. "Mind you without my equipment it takes a lot out of me and..." Surge tuned out. Something wasn't right.

Something he'd said before didn't quite fit with that. She tried to remember what it was. Some power he'd shown that couldn't be explained by knowing about what had already happened.

"How did you know Kim's car was coming?" She asked.

"I looked ahead; that's not nearly as useful as you'd think."

"You can see the future?" Surge asked. It would explain it, and if part of his power was time seeing in one direction she didn't think it was too much of a stretch that he might be able to see in the other direction.

"I can't believe we're just trusting him on this," Shego said.

"No," Horatio said while looking at Surge. Surge noticed a small shiver pass through him. "I can see what the future would be if I were to go into a catatonic state for the duration. Like I said, it's not that useful."

"Then why did you do it?"

"I wanted to see if you'd shut up," he said. It was almost playful

Surge allowed herself a faint smile.

x x x

"Look," Shego said, there was enough anger that Kim was worried about her. "I know that I was a little off before, but other than a lingering headache I'm better now, and I'm telling you all that we shouldn't just trust a claim like that without some kind of evidence."

"No parlor tricks," Horatio said. "I'm pretty well spent."

Shego looked like she was ready to hurl plasma at Horatio and his dismissive attitude would  _not_  help.

Kim hoped that if she confronted Horatio, Shego wouldn't feel the need.

Air had been restored to sections of the base. They had time to talk, time to think, time to rest, and time to form a plan. They did not have time for a fight that involved plasma. They couldn't risk such a thing.

"You implied that taking the time to explain how you knew what you claimed to know would make us run out of air. Now you're saying that it's five words: 'I can see the past,' that wouldn't have used up all our oxygen."

x x x

Possible's tone was possibly angry, and somewhat accusatory, it wasn't what Horatio expected from her. Still, he'd promised an explanation, so he'd give one. "I didn't want to get bogged down with explanations about the three kind of time travel, or the difference in what I can do with and without my equipment, or the inability to exploit loopholes, or any of the usual crap that comes with talking about time travel."

"Three kinds?" Surge asked.

"See what I mean?" Horatio asked. "Mundane, magical, and inter-temporal. I'm not magic and inter-temporal gives me a headache so you get the weakest form of time travel with me. No warnings to your past selves to prevent your unfortunate incarceration." Horatio thought a moment, decided he wasn't done, and added, "And blah."

"Isn't all time travel inter-temporal?" Hawk asked.

"In this context 'temporal' refers to time lines not time periods," Horatio said. "The trouble is that if you go down that rabbit hole you might never find your way back home. It's a complete mess, best avoided." He paused a moment and then turned to Kim, " _This_  is why I didn't want to get in it while we were still outside."

"Fine," Kim said. "Maybe waiting was wise, but you promised us you'd explain and you still haven't. What happened to the rest of humanity?"

"They killed each other," Horatio said. "What more do you want?"

"An explanation!" Possible shouted. Horatio hadn't seen that coming. From Shego, maybe, but he wasn't expecting that kind of response from Possible.

He looked around the room. Eight people staring at him intently. Possible was now fuming, Shego seemed to be calming down slightly. He didn't like being the center of attention. This was why he worked alone.

"Ok, I expect this from you four," he said quickly pointing at Possible, Shego, Amy, and Drakken, "but the rest of you saw what was going on. You saw what was happening in the world; did you really think it was going to last?"

"What's he talking about?" Possible asked.

Shego said, "He's deflecting."

"Things may have gone downhill a bit," Surge said, "but the world wasn't ending."

"What's he talking about?" Possible asked again.

Horatio just breathed an inward sigh of relief that the attention wasn't on him anymore.

x x x

Kim looked at the last ones taken. Blok, Hawk, and Henry. They hadn't talked about the state of the world, and she hadn't asked. They'd been too busy trying to get to safety. For the moment they were in a safe place. It was time to find out what happened.

Blok was the first to speak, "Things got pretty bad at times," he said. "I didn't expect to live through the Grass Famine of 2019."

"The what?" Kim asked. She looked around. Shego and Amy had no idea what he was talking about, that made sense. Drakken and Surge didn't seem to either.

"It was barely over when they caught me," Hawk said.

"It was more or less the midpoint of a string of copycat schemes," Henry added. "By far the most devastating."

Blok nodded.

"You three still haven't told us what it was," Shego said, an edge in her voice indicating she was losing her patience with  _them_  now. Shego had been right, Horatio was deflecting. Doing a competent job of it too.

Kim stole a glance at him, saw that he seemed to be zoning out, and then returned her attention to the three people who didn't mind sharing with the rest of the class.

x x x

Amy hadn't spoken since they'd gotten out of Kim's flying car. No one else seemed to have noticed, but it didn't bother her. She had a lot on her mind and was fine being alone with her thoughts.

This was the first time it seemed like they might get a decent explanation of anything since Surge had defrosted, so she started paying attention.

"Someone, called himself 'The Third Horseman', decided-" Hawk said.

"Herself," Blok said. "They eventually caught the Horseman and she was definitely female."

"After my time," Hawk said. "In any event, she realized that Killigan's plan with the super-grass stuff was a credible threat to the world."

"How?" Amy asked, genuinely perplexed.

x x x

"She threatened to use it on croplands," Henry said. "Food crops."

"In retrospect it would have been vastly more intelligent to just pay her off," Blok said; "she was only asking for money anyway."

"The powers that be decided to call her 'bluff'" Hawk said.

"She wasn't bluffing," Blok said.

"The super-grass took over farmland on four continents," Hawk said.

"And it barked," Blok added. "Which is just disconcerting.

"Everyone in power was scrambling to find some way to overcome it so we could start growing food again," Hawk said.

"Credit where it's due," Henry said, "they did eventually find a way to feed the world again."

"Eventually," Hawk echoed darkly.

"Two hundred and seventy three days into the food crisis," Henry said. "Food reserves lasted maybe half of that."

"It was like watching civilization collapse around you," Blok said.

"Countless species of plants and animals went extinct when the modified grass overtook their habitats," Horatio said.

x x x

Kim had always been smart enough to fear someone using her villains' schemes with intelligence. The inter-continental-electro-magnetisizer, for example, was something a reasonable villain would use to hold the whole world hostage by threatening its infrastructure. Drakkengaea was a child's ploy. Still, for such schemes to work one would have to actually carry out the threats. "Didn't anyone try to stop the Horseman?" she asked.

"Global Justice did," Hawk said, anger creeping into his voice "but they've always been much better at countering civilians, especially harmless ones, than they have been at stopping villains."

"Heroes?" Shego asked.

"Towards the end there weren't any left," Henry said. "GJ was always suspicious of freelancers. The more talented, the more they distrusted you."

x x x

"And God help you if you had actual preternatural abilities," Surge spat. The event in question may have happened after she was captured, but she knew about who got rounded up quite well.

"There were a few free areas, but they were always hard to get to," Blok said.

"And the people in them tended to stay in them," Hawk added. "Villains might have global consequences, but heroes were forced to stay in their own areas if they didn't want to..." Hawk trailed off.

"Be disappeared," Blok said.

Shego said, "Damn."

x x x

"Shouldn't the Grass Famine have caused people to realize that there was more need for heroes?" Drakken asked, surprising Kim because it was exactly what she had been about to ask.

"You'd think," Hawk said.

"But in actuality it just cast suspicion on anyone involved in science," Henry said. "The people with the knowledge and skill to, if not necessarily  _be_  heroes, support heroes weren't viewed as solutions to future problems, they were seen as sources of them."

Kim was having trouble processing all of this, but there was one point she had a firm handle on, "None of this explains the claim that humanity is completely extinct."

"No," Hawk said, turning to Horatio, "it doesn't."

x x x

Horatio took a moment to try to figure out a good way to explain things. When that failed he just started talking. "Kim and Amy are the exceptions here," he said. "It's freaks like the rest of us that really scared Betty."

"Makes sense," Drakken nodded. "Science takes study and training, so do most forms of magic, as do skills like the ones Kimberly used before turning to science. With enough surveillance Global Justice could know who to counter in any of those areas before the person developed enough to put up a serious resistance."

There was a pause, Horatio guessed that everyone expected Drakken to continue into one of his famed rants.

When he didn't Shego eventually asked, "And?"

"I would have thought that would be obvious," Drakken said. "You make a perfect example."

"If I don't like where this goes..." Shego warned.

"Shego," Kim said in a calming way while placing her hand on Shego's shoulder.

"Imagine that you'd come of age in the world after we left it behind," Drakken said. "You started off as a hero, so you'd have no cause to hide your training from the authorities, and your training is something that they could monitor. They could gauge your technique and decide whether or not you were a threat with ease.

"But your comet power is something else entirely. Like Surge's ability to connect with electronics it may have become better with training and practice, but it manifested as something that was already a force to be reckoned with. There was no lead up, no warning, no point at which an outsider could have stepped in to stop your power before it became too powerful to control."

"Not the perfect example, though," Horatio said. "The comet was hard to miss, and thus its effect upon Shego and her brothers was equally hard to miss."

"And this relates to your claim that humanity is extinct  _how_?" Shego asked.

Horatio reminded himself that Shego could kill him and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "What is hard to miss is when someone is born with a power," he said. "No light show. No origin story. No sign for Global Justice to beware. Hence their last weapon."

"Enough with the damn suspense!" Shego shouted. "What?"

"They made the world infertile."

Three people asked, "What?" Two swore. Three more simply stood with their mouths agape.

x x x

Kim's mind seemed to have broken. She struggled to process this new claim.

"They didn't intend to do it to the entire world, of course," Horatio said in a tone that sounded like he was giving a practiced lecture on a subject he found boring. "The idea was targeted bombings of meta-human -their term not mine- population centers. Unfortunately their creation proved a little too resilient, their dispersal methods far too effective, and as soon as it joined the rest of the fallout in the upper atmosphere, the human race was pretty well doomed."

Horatio looked at Kim and the seven others. Kim knew that the others likely had the same look of shocked disbelief on their faces as she doubtless had on hers. Horatio then added, "It's perfectly safe now, of course. It took maybe eight or nine years for the chemical compounds to break down. It's just that, by then, everyone on earth had already been affected. So, even though humanity survived the war, the human race died out in a generation."

Kim was the first one to regain her composure enough to speak. "Can you prove any of this?" she asked.

"I don't need to prove it," Horatio said. "It's true whether you believe it or not." Then he started examining his fingernails, as if cleaning them were incredibly fascinating.


	5. Downtime and What Came Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Kim and Shego work out how to get the survivors back to earth, some of the others use the free time to revisit history.

Kim looked around the room. Most people seemed mentally exhausted. Also despondent.

Shego had muttered something about Horatio stealing her style shortly after he started focusing on his fingernails. Surge had collapsed against a wall.

Amy and Drakken were discussing the possibility that an infertility weapon could really wipe out the human race. From what Kim was overhearing, it seemed disturbingly likely. The fact that it was targeted at the "meta-human" population meant that it was designed to affect a wider biological range than seen in the entire rest of the species. That reduced the odds that some people might have a natural immunity.

Henry, Hawk, and Blok were just staring into space.

Letting things go on like this couldn't possibly be good. So Kim did her best to muster a confident commanding tone and said, "Everybody listen up. Getting into Doctor Director's account has given me access to more information so-"

"Your wonder car couldn't hack the system?" Shego asked, but it lacked her usual punch.

"The system is hard-line only, Shego. There was no wireless access to hack," Kim said. Shego merely shrugged. "I'll need to look over the new information to figure out the best way to get us home. The good news is that we have more than enough air for the moment, so we can afford to do this right.

"Until I've had a chance to look at the new intel, you all can do whatever you want. A lot of the compartments we have access to were exposed to vacuum before I rebooted the systems here, so that should have preserved anything. Horatio already found some fruit.

"Take a walk, scrounge a meal, have a nap. I don't care what you do, but  **do something**."

The others slowly left the room. Shego didn't look like she wanted to, but Surge practically pulled her out of the room.

With the others gone Kim could get to the important work of trying to actually save them.

* * *

Shego looked annoyed at being called away, clearly she had some business she wanted to finish with Kim, but there was something that Surge needed to say to her and she'd already waited long enough. It was overdue really.

"I'm sorry," She told Shego.

"For what?" Shego said, apparently impatient and annoyed.

Surge was unsure: did Shego honestly not know, or did she just want to make her spell it out?

"You almost ran out of air," Surge said.

"Could have happened to anyone," Shego said.

"You ran out of air because you talked so much," Surge said. "You talked so much to keep me calm. If I hadn't been panicking you would never have been in danger."

"That's what you're worried about?" Shego asked.

Surge looked away, "You almost died and it was my fault."

Shego laughed. Now Surge was really confused.

"Kid, if you almost kill me, it won't be because you panicked a bit at being stranded on the moon, it won't involved an air supply, and I will be very impressed with you," Shego said.

Surge met Shego's eyes in hopes that they'd give some kind of indication of what she was thinking.

"Personally, I don't think you have it in you to take me out," Shego said, "and if you can come close then I've underestimated you."

Surge couldn't figure out what was going on in Shego's head, and finally decided to settle for one last question, "So you're not..."

"I'm not mad. I'm not angry. I'm not holding a grudge," Shego said. "If it means so much to you, you're forgiven." Shego paused for a moment, Surge tried to use the time to let Shego's words sink in, but they really didn't. "If you keep me from talking to Kimmie much longer, though, then I will be angry."

Surge knew the tone. It was a Shego-threat and Shego-threats were often followed by plasma.

"I- I'm done."

"Good," Shego said, then she walked out of the room.

* * *

When the others had shambled out Kim thought they looked like zombies, just not as cheerful. Dead eyes, emotionally spent, hopeless.

They'd be worse if she'd told them what she was worried about.

She sped through the files she now had access to, only glancing at them, each time determining that it couldn't help and moving on.

The room's door opened and she didn't even look away. She knew the sound of those barely perceptible footsteps well. Shego had come.

"It was a nice try, Princess, but if things were as peachy as you made them out to be, you wouldn't need to look for new information," Shego said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Kim said. The fact that she didn't even glance away from the computer's screen annoyed Shego more than the lie itself.

"If we take things slow so as not to rattle anything we'd accelerate at one g toward earth for an hour and forty-five minutes," Shego said. "Then we'd turn around and decelerate at one g for another hour and forty-five. That puts us in earth orbit.

"It'd take us around six minutes to sync with the earth's rotation. Then we just drop. At that point there's friction and drag involved, so let's average a mere 150 miles per hour to be extra safe. That means two hours to the surface.

"Five and a half hours, give or take, and the first group is safely on earth. Eleven hours and the incredible wonder car is back here for group two. Sixteen and a half and group two is down. That's probably all we need.

"If you're really worried about being able to pack enough air, we could do three groups of three and use the extra seats for air tanks. Twenty seven and a half hours to get us all back to earth using your car, and your car  _alone_."

Kim mumbled something that might have been, "Whatever."

"So what aren't you telling the others, Kimmie?" Shego asked. "Why do you need to look for more information on that antiquated piece of crap?" she pointed to the computer terminal in disgust.

Kim didn't respond.

Shego spun Kim's chair so that she was looking directly in her eyes and half growled, half shouted, "Answer me!"

* * *

Shego's math could use some work, but she was mostly right. If they were truly safe here then all they'd need to do would be to take a few trips in Jade. If they were.

Kim looked away from Shego.

"Look at me damn it!" Shego shouted. The words hit her like a punch. Worse, really. Kim had been punched a fair amount in her time and it never hurt that much.

When she finally did look at Shego she could feel the first tears sliding down her cheeks. It took her a few tries to speak. When she finally was able to, though, the words flowed out just fine:

"If anyone stays behind they won't live long enough for Jade to get back. Unless I find something in this base to change things, some of us are definitely going to die."

* * *

Kim hadn't slept. Maybe that was it. She'd been through a lot of stressful things of late and maybe that was causing her to give up hope. That'd better be the reason.

Possible had better not be giving up hope simply because the situation was hopeless because, "I'm not going to die up here!"

"You... you don't have to," Kim said. "Jade is made to seat five. If we pack her like the orange line at rush hour we can definitely get one or two extra people in there.

"So all I need-"

"The orange line?" Shego asked.

"I got my doctorate in Boston," Kim said. She turned back to the computer. "If I can just find some more space-"

"The trunk?"

"Has rocket engines in it," Kim said. "I just need to find a way to make Jade work for eight people. Then everything will be alright."

Kim definitely wasn't thinking straight. "There are nine of us," Shego pointed out.

"I'll stay behind," Kim said. "If I can save the others then maybe it'll make up for my part-"

"No!" Shego wasn't even sure why she was so angry at the idea of Kim staying behind. If someone had to, why not Kim? Kim had killed someone, even if it was accidental. Kim had captured her. Kim had invented the technology that had kept them all helpless for centuries. And Kim was not allowed to die.

Shego wasn't really sure why, but she definitely wasn't going to let Kim die.

"We're not all going to make it out of this, Shego," Kim said. "And I should be-"

"No. No, you don't get to start with the assumption that someone has to sacrifice themselves just so you can justify your desire to martyr yourself to earn atonement points," Shego said as she walked to an empty chair.

"I don't want to die," Kim said.

Shego picked up the chair and started back to Kim, "You can keep saying that if you want, but you're not acting like it."

She put the chair next to Kim's sat in it, and gestured at the computer, "Show me what's going on."

* * *

Henry, Blok, and Hawk had found what appeared to pass as a kitchen. It had things that, according to the labels at least, were in fact edible. All three of them seemed to have their doubts on that point. Even under the best conditions, the standards to which Global Justice held its field rations were not what most people would consider standards worthy of the name "Food".

Henry was sitting on a counter, pressed back into a space where a cabinet might have been intended to go. He watched as Blok stood near the middle of the room -occasionally changing to his stone form to rip cans open- and Hawk, now topless, modified his shirt with one of the kitchen knives.

For a long time no one spoke.

Finally Blok turned to Henry and asked, "How'd they get you?"

"I tried to make the world a better place," Henry said. Try to improve things and they slapped you down. He should have stuck to identity theft.

Hawk turned to look at Henry and smiled. "You too?"

"What did you do?" Henry asked him.

Blok had stopped messing with cans and had moved on to a bar of something that, if Henry interpreted the label correctly, claimed to be peach flavored. Block looked like he disagreed with that assessment of the flavor. Regardless, Henry's question to Hawk had obviously caught his attention, because he said, "You're kidding, right?" to Henry before Hawk had a chance to answer.

"I'm not kidding," Henry said.

"I'm interested in why you think I should be a household name," Hawk said. He paused to put on his shirt. "I was always small time." His deep blue wings burst into existence through the holes he had cut in the shirt.

"You were a folk hero," Blok said.

"I specialized in dealing with places where the security overlooked their vulnerability to aerial approaches and getaways," Hawk said while stretching his wings. "Hardly the stuff of legend."

"So you didn't get caught while leading GJ forces on a wild goose chase while a group of Saunders Act refugees under your protection escaped to freedom?"

"They got away?" Hawk asked. Henry could hear the genuine interest in his voice. He understood it. He'd feel a lot better about his own capture if it had done something good for someone.

"They all did," Blok said. "That's about the only thing all of the stories agree on: all of them, however many there were, made it to freedom."

Hawk smiled wide. Then he asked, "Where was freedom? Did they make it to Marcella's-"

"No, not the Free Zone," Blok said. "Shortly after you were captured a new territory was created: Ashley's Protectorate. Your refugees weren't far from the border so they crossed into it."

Hawk looked, understandably, at a loss. Which meant that Henry would get to tell a story because this he knew about. "It's a great story," Henry said.

"After the Grass Famine of 2019 a lot of people were unhappy with their leadership, but you couldn't exactly opt out," Henry said.

"Any time someone tried to rebel against the federal government or their GJ allies, the rebellion was put down, hard," Blok said.

Hawk shivered. "I remember seeing the video from Charlotte."

Henry did too. That had been when he promised himself that from that moment on he would only ever use text-only news sources.

"So, a lot of people wanted to have someone else in charge, but couldn't risk  _choosing_  to change leadership," Henry said. "That's when a first time villain named Ashley came onto the scene. She didn't see the point in code names, didn't want all that much and didn't even have a death ray.

"She threatened Cleveland with a non-lethal ray that simply would have caused discomfort. Before she could say how much -or really how little- she planned to extort, Cleaveland surrendered to her rule."

"As did Akron, Elyria, Youngstown-" Blok said.

"Within fifteen minutes it was the entire I-71 corridor all the way to Louisville," Henry said. "She was still trying to explain that she just wanted money, not to be in charge of anything, when the surrenders spread outward. Pittsburgh to the east, in the west Indianapolis followed by Chicago some 20 minutes later. When Fort Wayne saw her territory on both sides the people figured they should surrender too.

"She ended up with Ohio, Indiana, eastern Illinois, Northern Kentucky, and western Pensylvania."

"And before the territory was even settled," Blok said, "she was getting treaties and trade agreements from various places. Detroit was first to recognize her holdings as a nation-"

"They were always a thorn in Global Justice's side," Henry said.

"Canada threw in their support for reasons that no one really understood," Blok said.

"Japan and Marcella's Free Zone both offered alliances that were quickly accepted," Henry said.

"I'm … confused," Hawk said. "The Midwest just handed over control to someone who didn't even want it?"

"They wanted new leadership, and the prospect of a complete unknown in charge appealed to them more than either the people in Washington or the Global Justice leaders in whatever secret bunker they operated out of," Henry said.

"And they figured that while they could be punished for rebelling, they could hardly be blamed for being conquered," Blok said.

"But wouldn't GJ or the feds just take the land back?" Hawk asked.

"Global Justice was never equipped to wage a full scale war," Henry said. "They were much better at targeted operations dealing with specific individuals. Even then, it was generally assumed that they'd have the cooperation of local authorities."

"Or at least not be arrested on sight for being Global Justice," Blok said.

"The cops were always contrite about it of course," Henry said. "'Sorry, I don't want to throw you in jail, but a supervillain took over the entire area and horrible things will be done to me if I don't.'"

"The videos were so much fun," Blok said.

"Videos?" Hawk asked.

"Ashley didn't have the manpower to defend her, suddenly very large, borders," Henry said. "Part of what she did was simply use the existing law enforcement, move all military assets in her territory to the border, and stuff like that. But right from the start she needed a lot more people.

"Apparently she was uneasy giving weapons, the best evil science could create, to complete strangers. So anyone who did any kind of enforcement or defense for her had to wear a camera while on duty, cameras were also attached to weapons and various other things." Henry paused. "Intentionally turning one of the cameras off was automatically assumed to be to hide a major crime. The result was that-"

"Every time those storm troopers in blue and black got picked up by the police and thrown in jail there was a video of it," Blok said. "Generally from multiple angles."

"From when the camera policy was first implemented to when the Protectorate finally fell, the film of GJ agents getting what they had coming to them was a non-stop internet sensation," Henry said.

"Ok," Hawk said, "but what about the US military? They wouldn't just sit by and do nothing while the heartland defected."

"Ashley was thrust into power without ever wanting it," Henry said, "but she was also really good at managing it. She declared people who were 'different' a protected class, just like any ethnic or religious minority, and as a result people with powers flocked into her borders. She never conscripted anyone, but she was an extremely persuasive speaker and by the time the campaign to retake her territory in the name of the United States really took off she had special forces units equipped with reality bending tech and populated by reality bending people."

"She also said that the Protectorate was a second chance state," Blok said. "She explained it as getting a fresh start the moment you entered, if you wanted it, in exchange for service. Whatever your crimes you had a second chance. Second chance, not third, so you could still blow it."

"Since getting the second chance meant service directly to her government," Henry said, "everyone who took up the offer had the cameras. It worked out surprisingly well, even with the few catastrophic failures.

"Regardless, she had a sizable defense force by the time the military was coming after her, and she also managed to enlist several weather machines in her air-force. The going theory was Canadian assistance."

"Ok, that's the second time you mentioned Canada," Hawk said. Henry nodded. "But they were a GJ country."

"They were, and if they ever pulled out of the alliance GJ would have used their leverage in the US government to invade," Henry said. "No one knows why they risked GJ's wrath, but there are some theories I find compelling."

"What theories?" Blok asked.

"I was gonna say that," Hawk said.

"Ok," Henry said. "They couldn't openly defy Global Justice because of a big long border with GJ's closest ally and charter nation that was the US. But they seemed to enjoy thumbing their nose at GJ whenever possible, it was in large part thanks to their support that Detroit was able to remain largely independent.

"In fact, they were always supporting border regions that resisted Global Justice provided that the regions were on the US side of the border and thus didn't directly look like them rising up against GJ.

"The border regions provided Canada with a buffer zone since any invasion force would first have to fight through unfriendly territory on the US side of the border. Fighting resistance in the US meant that Global Justice's North American resources were tied up and couldn't be used to effectively crack down in Canada. When Canada was unable to shelter it's own citizens targeted by GJ, they could send them to the border regions for relative safety.

"And, finally, whenever they were forced to explain why they were supporting rebellions in a country they were allied with, they seemed to take great joy in detailing human rights abuses GJ committed in the US as justification for supporting the rebellion in question."

"It probably also made them feel good to do the right thing," Blok said.

"Ok, enough Canada," Hawk said, "what happened to the Protectorate?"

"It was a beacon of acceptance, tolerance, and saying, 'Damn the Man!' to the powers that be for about two years," Henry said.

"Then US forces with support from GJ pulled out all the stops and destroyed it in about a week, with another week afterward for mopping up," Blok said.

"Ashley was able to stop the previous efforts because she was consistently underestimated and none of those attempts went all out. The last one, though... the phrase I heard was that they were 'hit with everything short of nuclear weapons'," Henry said.

"That sucks," Hawk said, the depression in his voice was unmistakable.

"Consider where we are today," Henry said. "No story can have a happy ending. But the end of the Protectorate wasn't all bad. In the chaos that surrounded the fall, all of the Saunders' Refugees disappeared."

"Not Global Justice 'disappeared'," Block said. "They, somehow, got away clean."

"Ashley kept all of the attention focused on her," Henry said. "It was only after she died in a 'last stand' that GJ realized that she'd been distracting them. By then the Saunders' civilians were gone."

"Well, at least something went well," Hawk said.

"Your people were probably some of them," Blok said, "given how your story spread."

"You know," Henry said, "you never did tell us how a 'small time' criminal ended up sacrificing himself for refugees."

* * *

"Ok," Shego said, "I'm with you on the fact that not leaving on the initial trip means certain death."

In fact, the facility was designed incredibly poorly. There weren't enough resources to make repairs, it wasn't set up so you could write off damaged zones to conserve resources, and the way it kept the atmosphere from escaping the damaged sections was force fields. Force fields. Arguably the stupidest things one could install in the face of a vacuum.

When you repaired something to keep your atmosphere from escaping you wanted the patches to last, not to require a constant expenditure of power.

The power would fail before Kim's car could make a round trip. If they didn't leave as one, people were going to die.

"Which is what I told you, ages ago," Kim said.

_Testy, Princess?_  Shego thought. "But you're still going about this wrong," she said.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Kim said, and Shego decided that she needed to give Kim sarcasm lessons.

"Fitting more people into the car isn't the solution," Shego said. "We need to be looking for a vehicle to take the extra people in."

"And then what?" Kim asked. "Jade can tow whatever you find to earth, but once we get there it's not as easy getting it  _down_. She doesn't have a tow cable that can fight the stresses of gravity and inertia and wind and whatever the hell else we might encounter."

"Did Miss Perfect just swear?" Shego asked, allowing herself to be a bit playful.

Kim simply blushed.

"There might be hope for you yet, Kimberly Ann Possible," Shego said.

"Middle name?" Kim asked. "I must have done something really bad."

"Worse than bad," Shego said, "You showed  _potential_."

The conversation lapsed into silence.

Shego broke it by asking, "Are you ready to give my idea a chance?"

* * *

"Is the information you get specific or general?" Surge asked Horiatio. "You know, when you look at the past."

Horatio ignored her.

He was sitting on the floor, leaning against a wall, and staring off into space.

"I want to know about my girlfriend. Her name was Jana." Horatio closed his eyes.

"Did she live a good life? How did she die?"

Horatio sighed. "I'm spent. I'm useless now."

She wanted to be angry, but the way he said it almost made it seem like he'd actually said the word, "Sorry." She leaned on the wall next to him and slowly lowered herself to the floor at his side.

She had nothing to do. Nowhere to be. She had no one now. She wasn't even sure if she cared if she lived now.

* * *

Her hand touched his. Horatio held it. She was warm.

People overrated warmth. Cold blooded species were perfectly nice. Dinosaurs had merely been luke-warm blood. Still, warmth was something he could relate to. It made her more real. She had been warm when she'd helped him walk.

Not incessant chatter, just a simple feeling of warmth.

She'd helped him. She'd trusted him.

He tightened his grip on her hand and followed her back.

Wandering, Shego, the group meeting, it would take forever at this pace.

The trip to the base flew by, Surge was back in her cryobed. Nothing.

Nothing.

The cryobeds started to disappear from the room as the prison population dwindled. Horatio didn't look at them, he didn't want to know. Dead people he had no desire to see alive.

Movement. The world moved around him as Surge's cro-bed was transported. Into a lander, up to orbit, back to earth. All in a flurry.

He slowed down. A secret launch facility run out of Vandenberg. Various shipments to get her there without being tracked. A Global Justice facility. She was out of the cryobed, sedated though.

More movement, she was in a mall. She was standing.

"Damn," Horatio said to himself. She hadn't been breaking any laws, she'd been shopping. The GJ goons had knocked her out with one of their damned electroshock watches without even noticing that she was one of the innocent victims of the situation they'd been sent in to stop. Then they just shipped her off to the moon without ever letting her regain consciousness to tell her side of the story.

He followed her back. A few hours earlier she was in a small apartment with another young woman.

Nothing to indicate a name though.

Further back.

A phone call. The other one on the phone, but at the beginning of the call, Surge handed the phone to her. Perfect. He let time play out at a usual pace.

"Jana, it's for you," Surge said. The other woman walked in from a different room, took the phone, and thanked Surge.

Bingo.

He zeroed in on the exact moment that the phone was handed over, when Surge was closest to Jana. Then he did what he knew he should never do without out his equipment. He did something that was incredibly stupid. He switched anchors, and thus switched time-streams.

A jarring sensation, like if you caught your arm on something while running and it swung your whole body around.

Pain, but considering how these things went ...

Not bad. It was the trip back where things really hurt.

No one could see him. No one could hear him. Look, but no touching. Still he spoke: "Jana, show me how you lived."

For a time everything was normal. Just a daily routine. Then a growing unease. "Where are you Sarah?" Sarah, that was Surge's name. Shego had used it while they were on their trek.

Pacing. Phone calls. All to voice mail. Restless sleep. Nothing the next day. Reporting the disappearance to the police. The lack of evidence that Surge- Sarah had gone missing against her will caused there to be no case opened. Jana was told to come back later.

Jana started to ask around on her own. She found out that Sarah had been at the mall. She tracked down witnesses, finally people who remembered seeing Sarah. It took her weeks but she found people who had been in the same room as Sarah when GJ took her.

Now she knew what happened. She went to the police again. The person working the desk that day was sympathetic. A case was opened.

Nothing came of it. Eventually the officer came to Jana off duty and off the record and told her that Global Justice was stonewalling. There was nothing the local police could do, and pressure was being put on them to misfile all records of the case so that no one would connect them to the disappearance.

Internet chats. Human rights groups.

Talking to a member of The Mothers of the National Mall, a human rights advocacy group made up of mothers of people who had been disappeared. "She's an orphan," Jana had said when asked where Sarah's parents were.

Freedom of Information Act requests.

A gathering of about ten people in Jana's home town.

The Grass Famine. Pain. Loneliness.

Jana turned her laughable human rights group into something to help people through the famine. And every chance she had, she told people about her beloved Sarah who had been obeying the law and trying to make a meager life for herself before she had been abducted without cause.

People who had no interest in the disappearances learned about the true love of the woman who gave them food.

When the famine was over Jana's group was three hundred people strong and in partnership with other like minded groups around the country and around the world.

Political hell broke lose. Riots.

Barely back to normal after the Grass Famine, the truth about Kim Possible threatened to tip the world into anarchy. During the famine, after the famine, right up until the news came out, people all over the world were remembering the days of heroes. They were remembering that Kim Possible had stopped the super grass and thinking that if she were still alive, maybe the recent catastrophe would have been averted. Then they learned that she was still alive, just held in a secret prison on the moon.

The fact that she had never been given a trial just added fuel to the fire.

For Jana the news meant something else, something more personal. She knew where Sarah was. She talked to the moon. She prayed at the moon. She said, "I love you," to the moon every day. Sarah was somewhere up there.

A giant march, maybe a million people. The streets of New York City, at least the ones near the UN building, were covered in people. Commuters had abandoned their cars. Protesters stood on top of the cars as they demanded that their friends, family, and loved ones be returned. "Habeas corpus!" was one of a thousand things chanted.

They were ordered to disperse. Police and GJ agents said the gathering was unlawful.

Protesters held their hands together, daring the other side to cuff them. A chant arose and soon the protesters, maybe million strong, chanted as one, "Fly me to the moon." again and again.

Tear gas. Shorts fired. Blood in the street.

Running in all directions. Dragging the wounded so they wouldn't stay in the line of fire.

Bodies in the streets. Running from hiding place to hiding place, looking for a way to get free.

A cross country trip to get back home.

Telling people there what had happened. Some members leaving because they were afraid of what might be done to them. Others vowing to fight for what was right even more fiercely.

Being worn down over years.

Hope. The Saunders' act was repealed.

Despair. The person who led the repeal and oversaw it happening wasn't the Vice President but an impostor.

Years passed.

War. War with everyone.

Leaving home. Setting out to find some place to live, her followers behind her.

Finding Marcella's Free Zone and being welcomed with open arms. People who gave all that they had in spite of not having enough for themselves.

Years passed.

Old age caught up to her. When she was sure she was dying, Jana demanded to sleep outside. Each time she went to sleep she found the moon in the sky, and said, "Sarah, I love you."

One day she didn't wake up.

A funeral. Well attended. People sharing things Horiatio had seen and not even paid attention to. Lives that Jana improved, all shared in her memory.

Horatio had seen enough. He started to go back whence he came.

The first leg of the journey was simple. He went to where Sarah gave Jana the phone in a flash. Then the change over. It felt like he was hit by a semi-trailer at that point. It always hurt more coming back. Now he was with Sarah again. It was easy to follow her back to the present.

* * *

Horatio seemed to suddenly crumple. It wasn't easy for him to have that appearance given that he'd already been sitting in a pretty compact shape.

Looking at him Surge could almost feel the pain that had suddenly come over him, apparently from nowhere.

"She never stopped loving you, Sarah," he said.

She couldn't remember how to make words, she just said, "Whu?"

"She never stopped loving you; she never stopped trying to get you back. The world was better for it. She lived to a ripe old age and died of kidney failure. She died surrounded by people she'd helped."

"I- I thought you said you couldn't- I don't- Thank you." She was grateful, even if she didn't know how to feel about what he'd said.

"I shouldn't have," Horatio said.

"I- I'm sorry," Surge said. "I put you through that and I don't even know how I feel about the answer."

"Everybody dies," Horatio said. "She lived well. Maybe that counts for something."

* * *

"We're not going to randomly find some magical way to get back to-" Kim stopped right there. She should have said this was pointless ages ago because apparently the universe wanted to prove her wrong. "This looks interesting."

"What?" Shego asked.

"When you say you can fly anything...?"

Shego leaned in toward the monitor. "Oh, I can work with this."

* * *

Sarah had left to find something to eat. Horatio stared at his left hand, he was trying to hold it steady.

Good so far. A twitch. A flinch.

A shudder. A spasm the length of his arm. Shudder, shudder, spasm, twitch, flinch, twitch, spasm.

This was not good.

"I'm guessing it's not supposed to do that," Possible said. He hadn't even noticed her entering the hall.

How do you respond to that?  _No, it's totally supposed to move when I tell it to be still._

_If you'd used your battle suit so much that you came to rely on it, do you think maybe you'd be unprepared for working without it and end up doing things you shouldn't, overtax your body, and screw yourself over in your musculature?_

_It's just my cells becoming unstuck in time which will likely kill me if not treated._

"It's not supposed to do that," Horatio said.

"We have a plan," Possible said. "Come to the room we met in before in 15 minutes or so."

Horatio nodded.


	6. Getting Packed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now armed with a plan to get home, all that remains to do on the moon is for Kim and Shego to share the plan, for the survivors to ~~loot everything~~ salvage what might be useful, and not be killed by an automated war machine the Lorwardians left behind.

When Horatio was the only one not to show up in the room they planned to meet, Surge decided to go looking for him.  True, he wasn't late --instead the others were early-- but he'd looked fairly bad the last time she saw him and she was worried.

She found him half collapsed, holding on to a doorway with what looked like desperation to keep from collapsing the rest of the way.

"Hey," she said.  No response.

She walked closer.

"Horatio."  Nothing.

She tapped him on the shoulder.  He looked up, he seemed exhausted.  "Need help?" She asked.

He simply nodded.

Surge took his right arm, put it over her shoulders, held it in place by holding his right hand with hers, and put her left arm around his waist.  With her support he was able to walk, and together they made their way to the meeting room.

* * *

When Surge helped Horatio come in in he seemed barely able to walk, even with the help.  Kim was concerned.  She had no idea what was causing him to deteriorate faster than the others, but he obviously was and it wasn't good.

On the slightly positive side, it looked like all of the others --even Shego-- were likewise concerned.  Things would definitely go better if they all cared about each other's well-being.

"Still a bit early," Kim said, "but unless someone has something really interesting they want to finish," six of the others glared at Kim.  "Ok, let's get started.

"Jade isn't a viable option for moving all of us, and leaving anyone behind would be a very bad idea, so we needed to find another way."

"Why do I get the feeling there's something you're not telling us?" Hawk asked.

"Because there's something she's not telling you," Shego said.

"You're _so_ helpful," Kim shot at Shego.

"I try to be, Cupcake," Shego said in voice that was so mock-innocent and and overly-sweet that Kim felt like she should be checking her insulin levels.

"The good news is that GJ brought an old shuttle up here as part of a transportation plan that never panned out, which means that it's still here."

"I didn't see a launch pad set up," Blok said.

"Are we really going to count on 500 year old rocket fuel?" Henry asked.

"There's no fuel," Kim said.

That caused an uproar.  Shego was the one to stop it.  It didn't take much from her.  She shouted, "Shut Up!" and then growled.  Things almost immediately became silent.

"It's an _old_ shuttle.  The kind they invented the term 'Space Shuttle' to describe," Shego said.  "I don't know what they had when you people went under, but they were still in use when I was caught so I remember them pretty well and the **only** thing that matters to us right now is that the shuttles never flew.  They were _gliders_."

"Jade can get it to earth orbit and throw on the breaks to start the decent, then we glide it down like in the days of old," Kim said.

"And by 'we' she means me," Shego said.  "I'm piloting it down to earth."

"The important thing is that we don't need to fully fuel it, all we need is maneuvering," Kim said.

"This sounds like a horrible idea," Hawk said.  "I like it."

"How do you know it won't just blow up?" Surge asked.

Kim didn't say anything.  Nor did Shego.

Surge turned to Horatio, "Can you--"

He shook his head before she reached the question, but Kim knew what it was.  Their success was not preordained.  Whatever was wrong with Horatio, it was preventing him from 'looking ahead' to see what happened.  Or maybe he could never look that far 'ahead' anyway.

"I'm sure Kimberly wouldn't be going through with this plan if it weren't the safest option," Drakken said.

That didn't seem to reassure Surge.

"And, as much as it pains me to said it," Drakken added, "she is, in fact, all that."

Kim allowed herself a small smile.

"Where do we go from here?" Amy asked.

"The shuttle was intended to be a CRV, a kind of emergency lifeboat, but it was never actually retrofitted to carry additional people," Kim said. "In theory it can carry 11, but no shuttle has ever carried more than eight and I don't think we want to experiment.

"I'll be in Jade towing the shuttle, Shego will be piloting the shuttle, Jade will scan for the best area on the ice sheet to use a landing strip.  Once we're in the air," Kim realized it was a poor choice of words and hesitated a moment, "so to speak, there won't be a lot for the rest of you to do.   _Until_ then, grab whatever you think is useful.

"The vacuum will have preserved the equipment here better than anything we can count on back home.  The shuttle will carry fourteen thousand four hundred kilograms--"

"Thirty two thousand pounds," Shego said. 

" _Thank you_ ," Kim said with a total lack of gratitude.  Shego just smiled.  "And the bay is four point six meters by eighteen meters--"

"Fifteen by fifty-nine feet," Shego said.

"So," Kim continued, "with that in mind--"

"Loot everything," Shego said.

"Whatever will fit and you think is useful," Kim said, "we can transport to the shuttle site more or less the same way we got you all here.  Shego and I will be rigging up a trailer--

"Sled," Shego said.

"Sled that we trail, thus _trailer_ ," Kim said before finishing with, "better suited to transporting cargo.

"Once we're loaded up, we head home."

"Where is the shuttle site?" Amy asked.

"It's a little bit farther than the prison, in almost--"

"But not quite," Shego said.

Kim had had enough of the interruptions.

"Would you STOP that!?"

"No," was Shego's calm reply.

"Almost the opposite direction," Kim said.  "Anyway, the important thing is look around, check the computers, venture out into the places that are still without air --make sure to keep track of your O2 when you do-- and collect whatever might be of use."

"And on the topic of the thing she isn't telling you," Shego said, "It would be in our best interest to be ready to go in six hours or less, so don't think you have to fill up the _entire_ thirty two thousand pounds."

"But don't skimp or hurry either," Kim said, "This is our best chance to get decent supplies and we may never have another opportunity like this.

"I know we all want to get home; I know that I would really like to go **right now** instead of spending more time up here, but you've all seen what the earth looks like and heard what everyone's said; if we want to survive we need to give ourselves every advantage.  Right now that means gathering supplies."

* * *

Most of the others had gone to computer terminals.  With Dr. Director's account info they'd been able to give every terminal complete access to all records, including inventory.

Horatio was still in the chair Surge had helped him collapse into.  Shego approached him.

"What is the most callous way I can put this?" Shego asked herself aloud.  "Oh, I've got it."  She paused for effect.  "If you let yourself die you'll be responsible for the death of 11% of the human race --assuming what you've said so far isn't bullshit."

For a few moments Horatio said nothing, he just looked at Shego in a way she found unnerving.

"I'll live long enough," he said, "assuming you don't get us blown up on the trip home."

* * *

"A genomic sequencer!" Amy said at the same time Drakken said, "A pan dimensional vortex inducer!"  The two were having great fun in a tech storage vault.

* * *

"So what are we looking for?" Henry asked.

"Food, weapons, space heaters," Hawk said.

"Building supplies too," Blok added.

"Just imagine trying to survive in the frigid wilderness and think of what you'd need to stay alive."

Henry thought for a moment.  "Water purification."

The other two looked at him.  He wasn't really sure how to interpret the looks.

"If you're comfortable drinking glacial ice that could, for all we know, have remnants of fallout from a war that was both nuclear _and_ biological when all you've done to make that water safe is to merely boil it, that's fine," Henry said. "I'd prefer something more."

Hawk nodded.

Blok said, "Water purification: check."

* * *

"Now that we have transportation, I think we should head back to the prison," Surge said.

The fact that she hadn't even realized Surge was near her wasn't even what caught Kim off guard.  It was the entire concept of what she was saying.

"What?" Kim asked.

"The way I see it we should have at least three transport trailers, maybe four.  Two or three we use for transporting things from here to the shuttle.  We load one up, drop it off at the shuttle along with people, leave them there to load the shuttle, while that's going on a second team is back here loading up the next trailer.  If we have three instead of two we can  make it so that there's never a time when there isn't a trailer to be loaded here and a trailer to be unloaded there, not even while transporting trailers between the two locations.

"The third or fourth trailer, we take back to the prison, along with a generous helping of air, and we load _everything_ from the personal effects vault onto it.  We don't know what might be useful, we never really did a proper search, and there's no point in leaving that stuff up here."

"It's an interesting idea," Kim said.

"Just don't put me on the team that goes back to the prison," Surge said.  "I'm not good around dead people."

"I'll think about it," Kim said.

* * *

"Ok, Kimmie, here's your _sitch_ ," Shego said, placing as much disapproval on the word as she could muster.  "Drakken and Amy are doing their mad scientist thing and collecting everything we could ask for in that arena.  Blok, Hawk and Henry are looking into stuff we'll actually need for survival, food, water purification, things to use to build shelters and defend ourselves from any unhappy animals, heating elements, and the like.  Surge I haven't touched base with.  Horatio is out of play but assures me he'll live.

"Which presumably means it's time for us to start doing our part."

"Surge actually had an interesting idea about that," Kim said.

"Really?  She never struck me as an ideas person, do tell."

* * *

"Anything I can do to help?" Surge asked Horatio, who had moved to the computer terminal.

"Gopher mission," he said pointing at a list on the screen.

"I can do that," Surge said.  "There wouldn't happen to be a working printer around here somewhere, would there?"

* * *

Everyone was back in what was definitely now their official meeting room.

"We have some revisions to the plan that should make things easier," Kim said.  "Shego and I are going to construct _four_ cargo sleds to haul behind Jade.  It's actually looking like it'll be a pretty simple and quick process.  Three will be used to ferry equipment between here and the shuttle site, meaning we can have equipment being loaded and unloaded continually.

"That should be a definite help because Jade can't go at full speed without threatening the cargo in the sled.

"Sled four is going back to the prison.  We're going to send a team there, fully stocked on air of course, and have them clean out the entire personal effects vault, load it onto the cargo sled, and then Jade will tow it to the shuttle.

"Horatio, you're staying in Jade," Kim said.

Horatio looked up.

"She has full medical scanners and can keep track of your condition."

Horatio looked like he was about to object, but then said nothing.

"Shego needs time to check out the shuttle, top to bottom, and then re-check it," Kim said, "That leaves seven of us to split between three jobs."

"I've still got things I need to salvage here," Surge said.

Kim nodded, "That's fine, but I image nobody's filled out their wishlist just yet.  So before anyone leaves I want them to make a list of things that they definitely want on that shuttle.

"Blok, if I remember correctly you're _a lot_ stronger in your stone form."

"I am," Blok said.

"Then, if we can adapt a space suit to that size--" Kim looked at Drakken and Amy, "Can we?" 

The two had a short whispered conversation.  "In thirty minutes or less," Drakken said.

"Ok," Kim said.  "Blok, once they've done that I want you loading the shuttle, and with you on it that can be the smallest team."

"I can do it alone," Blok said.

"Are you sure?" Kim asked.

"I've got this, Red," Blok said. "The hard part isn't going to be me getting everything into the shuttle.  It's going to the rest of you scrounging up enough stuff to fill it.  Plus, it'll leave you with an even three and three."

"So who goes to the prison and who stays here?" Kim asked.

"You don't go," Shego said.  She said it sternly, she said it definitively.

While Kim had no particular desire to go back to the prison, she wanted to object to Shego giving her orders.  "Why shouldn't I--"

When Shego interrupted her tone was surprisingly kind, which threw Kim off considerably, "Princess, last time you were there you had a nervous breakdown."

Kim wanted to object, not to the factuality of what Shego said --it was definitely true-- but to the idea it meant she shouldn't go there _this_ time.  Before she could, Hawk volunteered.

"I'll go," he said.  "I've spent a lot of time in unethical labs, I've seen a lot of pretty terrible things, I think I'll be fine with being in that place again."

"Ok, so we need two more for the prison, and one more to stay here," Shego said, "Henry, Dr. D, Amy, where do you want to go?"

"Honey Bunny and I can get supplies from the prison," Amy said, grabbing Drakken's arm.

Kim sighed.  She'd never gotten a chance to disagree with Shego ordering her around.

"Shego and I need to make the cargo sleds before we can bring anything to the shuttle," Kim said. "It looks like it should go pretty quickly, though.".

"The walls of some of the derelict buildings are perfect as bases," Shego said, "The only way it would go faster is if I could use my plasma outside."

"You know-" Drakken started to say.

"No," Kim said, "I need you and Amy working on a suit for Blok's stone form.  It needs to be able to fit him in that form, be strong enough to stand up to the stresses that will be put on it, it needs to provide adequate air--"

"Don't worry about the weight of the air tanks," Blok said, "I won't even notice them in my other form."

"It needs to be done as quickly as possible without compromising safety," Kim said.

"I'll head over to the prison and get started," Hawk said.  After a beat he added, "If your super car will let me."

"Good," Kim said, "Take Horatio to Jade with you.  Henry, Surge, Blok, keep working on scavenging here.  Drakken, Amy let us know the moment you're done with the suit so we can get you to the prison site and send Blok to the shuttle with the first load of supplies."

Kim started to walk out of the room with purpose.

"Oh, Kimmie," Shego said in an infuriating tone, "did Princess forget part of the briefing?"

Kim couldn't think of anything.  Shego just waited.  Kim wasn't going to give Shego the satisfaction of getting Kim to ask.  There were about fifteen tense seconds.

" _How_ is everyone going to stay in contact?" Shego asked.

Kim's open palm met her face of its own volition.  If it had asked for her permission she would have told it not to because Shego's snickering after that had been completely predictable.

Kim sighed, walked over to a bag, and dumped the contents on a table.  Global Justice standard issue field radios.  About the size of the handset for a landline.  "These have all been tested and they work," Kim said.  "They're set to the same frequency as our space suit radios --which Jade is also on now-- so you should be able to stay in contact indoors and out.

"Hawk, in Jade's back seat you'll find a bunch of tall sort of cylindrical devices.  They're signal relays.  Jade will tell you where to put them and they'll make it so we have an open line from here to the prison and, eventually, the shuttle site.

" _Now_ , we all have work to do," Kim said.

* * *

The only thing that kept Horatio from going insane was the fact that Kim's car had an impressive music library.  In fact, the car claimed that it had all the songs.  As in: ALL THE SONGS.  As in everything ever recorded.

Hawk worked at the prison, the others worked at the base.  Shego and Kim were the first to finish their work, but other than dropping Shego off to do her absurdly detailed inspection of the shuttle that didn't mean much.  It was when Amy and Drakken finished their work that things kicked into action.

The two joined Hawk at the prison, Blok was delivered to the shuttle along with the first sled of loot, and Jade became occupied in dragging loaded sleds to the shuttle and empty ones back to places where they'd be loaded.

Mostly it was back and forth between the base and the shuttle, the bulk of the work at the prison seemed to be consolidating the personal effects into boxes that were full instead of mostly empty, something Horatio only heard about over the radio.  Also, the sled for the prison was extra large as it wasn't intended to be part of Jade's endless transport circuit.

Other than a couple of air tank resupply runs, nothing happened but Jade going back and forth, back and forth.  With Horatio in her.

The car didn't seem to mind the monotony.  Horatio was a different story.  Thus the music was the only thing that allowed him to maintain a semblance of sanity.

> _Many is the time I've been mistaken_  
>  _and many times confused._  
>  _Yes I've often felt forsaken_  
>  _and certainly misused._  
>  _Oh, but I’m all right, I’m all right_  
>  _I’m just weary to my bones_  
>  _Still, you don’t expect to be_  
>  _Bright and bon vivant_

*beep beep*

> _So far away from home, so far away from home_

"Was that 'beep beep' good or bad?" Horatio asked Jade.

> _I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered_  
>  _I don’t have a friend who feels at ease_  
>  _I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered_  
>  _Or driven to its knees_

"Well?" Horatio said, somewhat annoyed he had to talk over the music.

"Analyzing." Jade said.

> _We've lived so well so long_  
>  _Still, when I think of the road_  
>  _We’re traveling on_  
>  _I wonder what went wrong_  
>  _I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong_

"Something, I cannot yet determine what, has appeared on the horizon."  Jade said.

Horatio cut the music.  "What do you mean, 'appeared?'"

 "It was not there the last time we occupied this position, now it is there," Jade said.

"Passive scans only," Horatio said, "but find out what it is."

"You do not control me," Jade said, "however I agree with your suggested approach and am proceeding as you advised."

"Thank you," Horatio said.

* * *

"We have a problem," Jade's voice said over Kim's suit radio.

"Can you be more specific?" Kim asked.

"The Lowardians forgot to take one of their toys home with them and it's noticed us," Horatio said.

"Which of us did it notice?" Kim asked.

"It is headed directly toward the shuttle site," Jade said.

"Damn," Shego said.  "Anywhere else we could have evacuated, but we _need_ this thing."

"Can you do anything?" Kim asked.

"Normally, sure.  They go down easy.  But right now if I light up I breach my suit."

"We've got weapons here," Henry said.

"Those laser pointers?" Shego said in full sarcasm mode.

"Given the cold dead fingers you had to pry them out of," Hawk said, "I'm guessing they're not effective against Lorwardian technology."

"I may be able to help with that--" Drakken started.

"Jade, go." Horatio said.

"Dr. Drakken," Jade said, "please meet us as the prison egress airlock."

"What _is_ your idea?" Kim asked, while also making a note of Jade's independence.  Kim new that Horatio couldn't command the car or its AI, thus doing what he said it meant the AI had chosen to do so, and made that choice without consulting Kim.

"Get me one of GJ's lasers with full charge, get me..."

* * *

Surge tuned out the technobable and was surprised when Drakken's "Get me," list ended with, "And get me Surge."

"What?" she said more as a reflex than a question.  When she'd had few more moments to process it she asked, "What can I do?"

"You can-- OW"

"It's the helmet," Horatio said in a way that made Surge worry he might be on the verge of losing consciousness.  "It means you've got to duck a bit when you get in."

"Whatever," Drakken said with clear annoyance.  "Surge, you can amplify the power of the laser and you can interface with the war machine as soon as we've punched a hole in its outer hull to expose its central computer to your power."

"Uh, this is me we're talking about," Surge said.

"Who cares if everything blows up?" Shego said.  "It's not like we're particularly attached to a random laser _or_ an alien machine bent on destroying us."

" _I_ might care if I get hit by the shrapnel," Surge said.

"Sur--," Kim said, then stopped.  "What's your real name?"

"Sarah."

"Sarah, I know this is a lot to ask of you," she said gently, "but we don't have a lot of options and this happens to be our only plan.  Would you please try?  I wouldn't put this all on you, but none of us can do it."

Surge sighed.  "I"ll try, but I've never interfaced with alien technology.  If this fails and we all die no one is allowed to blame it on me, plus I get a _massive_ 'I told you so' in the afterlife."

"Deal," Kim said.

And that was about when the car arrived.

It took Kim a few more minutes to get Drakken's supplies.

Then they were off.

* * *

"Too much quiet," Horatio mumbled.

> _Oh, little sleepy boy, Do you know what time it is?_  
>  _Well the hour of your bedtime's long been past_  
>  _And though I know you're fighting it_  
>  _I can tell when you rub your eyes_  
>  _You're fading fast, oh fading fast_

Horatio made a sound that he hoped was interpreted as approval and reclined his chair to as close to horizontal as he could.  
  
"... topography from here onward is extremely flat.  I can't ..." "...any closer without being ..."

> _'Cause if I can't sing my boy to sleep_  
>  _Well it makes your famous daddy look so dumb_  
>  _look so dumb_

Horatio noticed that the others weren't in the car anymore.

> _Won't you close your weary eyes  
>  Ain't nothing flashing but the fireflies_

He faded again.

> _When I was a little boy_  
>  _And the Devil would call my name_  
>  _I’d say, “Now who do . . ._  
>  _Who do you think you’re fooling?”_

Different song, maybe he should pay attention.

> _I'm a consecrate--_

The music stopped; definitely time to pay attention.

Horatio tried to pull himself up with difficulty until Jade must have noticed what he was doing and the seat's back returned to upright on its own, taking him with it.

"Status?" he said groggily.

"We have set down behind a bolder so that the machine will not detect our presence.  Drakken and Surge have continued on foot to achieve optimal probability of success.  Thus far they have remained undetected, presumably because they are far less conspicuous than a flying car.

"I have turned off the music because, due to a glitch I have been unable to isolate, any music I send to you is broadcast on any channel I open.  I am preparing to open a channel to Drakken and Surge."

Horatio nodded.

Jade opened the channel.

* * *

Surge heard Jade over her suit's radio, "You should be nearing optimum distance to target."

"Also, not to rush you or anything, but I can totally see the damn thing from here so deal with it before it destroys our way home," Shego said.

"Yeah, no pressure at all," Surge said with what she hoped was appropriate sarcasm and disapproval.  With Shego it could be hard to find the right level.  Then she said what was actually on her mind, "Dr D, I feel like I'm still missing some elements of this plan.  For example, you seem to have left out the part that explains how this is supposed to work."

"Like that's a first," Shego said.

"Words hurt, Shego," Drakken said.

"I'm serious.  We blow a hole in the machine, several question marks, I interface with it, then we win," Surge said.  "Could you fill in the blanks before we die?"

"Couldn't you two have talked about this in the car, before we were dangerously close to out of time," Kim said.

"Temper, Princess." Shego said in scolding tones.

"Bite me," Kim replied.

At another time Surge might have been thrown by Kim's uncharacteristic behavior, but they were all strained, there was a death machine of death filled doomy death nearby, and she really, truly, needed more detail on how this was supposed to work.

So she just shouted, "Could you two quit flirting!?"  Almost immediately both started to protest, but she cut that off before either got a full word in, "Some of us have actual work to do.  And we had to spend the time making sure I'd be able to interface properly with the laser."

"I don't see what the problem is," Drakken said.  "Once we've broken through the outer shielding can't you just ..." he made the gestural equivalent of, "do your thing, which I don't really understand in any kind of depth."

"I need to touch something to interface with it."

"But I've seen you--" Drakken started.

"When I was fully equipped," Surge said.  "Do I _look_ like I have my accoutrema?"

" _Accouterments_ ," Shego corrected.

"Shego," Kim said in annoyed/disappointed tone.

"What?  I'm a school teacher," Shego said.

"Jade, can you cut them out of the communications link until we're done here?" Surge asked.

Both started to protest, then the line went silent.

"Thanks Jade," She said.  "Now, we seem to have a serious hole in this plan," she said to Drakken.  "And we've got how long to fix it?"

"For optimal probability of success, a minute and thirty two seconds.

"Am I still connected?" Hawk asked.

"Yes," Jade, Surge, and Drakken said at once.

"If you can pierce the armor with one shot, why not just shoot it repeatedly."

"It wouldn't work because--"

Surge was familiar with Drakken's long winded explanations, they didn't have time, especially since there was an easy to explain practical reason.

"Even if that were likely to succeed in theory," Surge said, "overpowering the rifle for that many shots would almost certainly make it overload before it worked in practice.

"We don't have to change the plan," Drakken said.

"The plan that won't work?" Surge asked. " _That_ plan we don't have to change?"

"You amp up the rifle for one shot which exposes the electronics, I'll distract it with the rifle, which doesn't need to be overpowered to be distracting, you go in and disable it," Drakken said.  "Basically the same plan as before."

"I suggest you do it in the next forty five seconds," Jade said. "And the odds of success will decrease even more dramatically in ninety."

"Fine," Surge said. "Let's do--"

"--body cuts me out of the conversation," Shego said.

"Sorry," Jade said, "she's bypassed--"

"Apology accepted," Surge said quickly, "we don't have time for explanations."

"Remember, only the first shot matters," Drakken said, "after I break through the armor around the processor I don't need you amping the rifle, I'll distract and you go in and finish the job."

"Doc, I've seen you shoot," Shego said. "If the first shot matters so much, let Surge take it."

* * *

"Jade don't--" Kim started.  "She cut me out, didn't she?"

"Well, I can still hear you, Princess," Shego said.

"Ugh," was Kim's only response.

"Extremely eloquent."

"If Surge thinks that that's what flirting sounds like she's got a lot to learn about relationships," Kim said.

"She was just trying to make you shut up." Shego said. "I know for a fact that she's better in relationships than you are."

"How would you know that!?" Kim asked.

"She talked about her personal life at work," Shego said.  "When you put me on ice she'd been with her girlfriend for longer than you've been with any of your boyfriends."

It took a moment for that to sink in.  Before Kim could think of a retort though, Shego added, "Also, I am a magnificent flirt."

"Really, Miss, 'I need to ask my arch foe, who is also my student, for dating advice because being an evil sidekick doesn't leave time for relationships.'"

"MIND CONTROL," Shego said.  Kim was going to point out that being reverse polarized didn't change your knowledge when Shego added, "Also, I said that I'm a magnificent _flirt_ , which is completely true.  Dating is something else entirely.  If you're going to -- Yes!"

"What?" Kim asked.

"Nobody cuts me out of the conversation," Shego said.

"You got through to them?" Kim asked.

Shego apparently ignored her.

"Doc, I've seen you shoot," Shego said. "If the first shot matters so much, let Surge take it."

* * *

_We're in space.  We're on the moon.  There is no air here.  Outside of this suit is nothing.  Nothing , what will us if something goes wrong._

Everything screamed that.  At ordinary levels her power was usually invisible, but given how much she was amplifying the rife there should have been plasma arcs visible all around.  Even Drakken had never figured out what caused them, or why they tended to be in the pink to purple range of colors, but they definitely should be there.

Or, rather, they should have been there if there were air.

Since there were none... everything screamed that they were in a vacuum.

"Aim at the red dome on the underside," Drakken said.

Surge saw at least a million ways this plan would go wrong.  Not could, would.  At this moment she was convinced she was going to die.  But she pushed that from her mind.  She had to aim _while_ enhancing the rifle,  That took concentration.

Distractions fell away and time lost meaning.  The only three things left in the universe were herself, the rife, and her target.   She focused on the bull's eye.  The red dome on the underside of main machine.

The rifle had iron sights, seemingly of its own volition it came into her field of view and the front and rear sights aligned as she focused on the red dome.  She stopped breathing to steady her shot and used the lightest possible force to pull the trigger.

A section of the dome, near the center, seemed to simply disappear.  Surge smiled.  Who needed combat training?  She'd gone to summer camp.  Summer camp where she earned the rank of "Flying Squirrel" in riflery.

Her shooting concentration evaporated quickly and she shoved the rifle into Drakken's hands then moved as fast as she could _away_.

There had been no visible beam.  No visible beam because there was no atmosphere to resist the weapon and thus nothing to light up the beam.   _We're in space.  We're on the moon.  There is no air here.  Outside of this suit is nothing.  Deadly, deadly nothing._

And now there was a new problem.  If the hole had punctured the machines defense against electronic attacks, and beyond the hole the machine was safe, that meant Surge had to get too the hole.  A hole that was on the underside of the main body of the robot, which she estimated was three to five stories above ground level.  With nothing under it.

The only way up was to climb one of the four very unpleasant looking legs.

* * *

At first Drakken worried that Surge had lost her nerve, but then he saw the hole in the red dome he'd told her to aim for.  He fired the rifle at the machine several times to make sure he had its attention, then looked to where Surge was hiding.

He had to bait the war machine in such a way that it didn't notice her, but still passed close enough for her to climb on board.  Clearly this would require careful--

He felt the first of the tremors caused by the machine's forceful footsteps.  That's when he let out a yelp and simply ran, hopped, stumbled, rolled, and generally moved however he could as fast as he could directly away from the machine.

* * *

"At this rate Doctor Drakken will be captured or killed well before Surge is able to complete her mission," Jade said as she turned on full power, rose from the lunar surface, and turned on her sound system.  "Moving to intercept."

> _This here's a story about Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue_  
>  _Two young lovers with nothing better to do_  
>  _Than sit around the house, get high, and watch the tube_  
>  _And here is what happened when they decided to cut loose_

* * *

There was no way Drakken could outrun the thing, it had almost caught up to him in fact, and now infernal music was playing over his radio.  He was quite sure he was going to die.

Then the flying car was beside him, and the rear door opened.  He jumped in.

> _Bobbie Sue took the money and run_

"It should be _ran_ ," Drakken muttered.

> _Go on take the money and run_  
>  _Go on take the money and run_

* * *

Surge reached the second segment of the leg, which was mercifully horizontal at the moment, and did her best to sprint across it.  Difficult in the space suit, but much easier than traversing the loose regolith.

> _You know he knows just exactly what the facts is_  
>  _He ain't gonna let those two escape justice_  
>  _He makes his living off of the people's taxes_

* * *

"What's going on?" Hawk asked while moving a box full of personal effects to the airlock.

Jade had delivered enough air reserve tanks from the base to make sections of the prison safely habitable again, for the moment, and as such he could move through it without a suit.  As such, this part of the process went quite quickly.  In fact, there were almost enough boxes at the airlock to justify putting on his suit and taking them out to the sled.  Not quite though, because of the time involved in putting on or taking off the suit, he and Amy were trying to keep changes to a minimum.

"I have retrieved Doctor Drakken and am currently distracting the machine while dodging energy weapons," Jade said.  "Surge has almost reached her target."

"Is My Honey Bunny safe?" Amy asked.

"This thing's terrible driving is--" Drakken said in a voice that sounded somewhat sick.

"Dr Drakken is well," Jade reported.

"I thought that you liked Monty, Amy," Shego said.

"I've come to realize-"

"Guys!" Surge shouted.  "Not.  The. Time."

* * *

The music was helping calm Surge's nerves somewhat, and she was grateful that Jade had chosen an instrumental this time because she didn't need the distraction of words.  Mind you, this song had been unnerving at first, but by the time it was two minutes in that had changed.

She was at the top of the leg, and she could see her target clearly, but there was nothing she could do to get there other than jump and hope for the best.

* * *

Drakken senselessly interrupted ELO's masterpiece, "Fire on High", to announce, "She's jumped for it."

Horatio tried to ignore him and lose himself in the music.

* * *

Surge was able to catch the hole the laser had punched, and her weight was little problem in the lunar gravity, but her momentum tried to pull her further and she jarred her left shoulder staying at the hole.

She ended up holding herself up using her right arm, and lifted her left hand to touch the exposed electronics.

She wasn't sure if it was because it was alien, because it was huge, or because interfacing through the space suit glove was more difficult and, unlike with the laser rifle, she hadn't had any practice on connecting with the alien machine through the glove.  Whatever it was, this was hard.  Especially hard since she was, basically, trying to create the kind of system crashing accident that she usually had to put all of her efforts into avoiding, and it wasn't working.

Finally, though, she did get clear access.

Drakken was right, repeated shots wouldn't have worked, given how few the rifle could have managed at that level.  The machine was simple, but it was also robust.  She was sensing redundancies on its redundancies.  No wonder they'd been so hard to hurt in the invasion, other than the legs where Surge imagined the armor was thickest, this thing had no critical point to attack.

Shooting it where she did had given her access to its control systems, but if all she did was create a local failure it wouldn't even slow it down.  There were just too many back ups.  It felt like it could operate fine with 90% of its electronics fried, or more.

She had to make the whole system fail at once, or it would just keep coming.  Worse still was that the components of the system were themselves quite strong.  Ordinary human technology would have fried itself by now given the amount of effort she was putting in and the volatility of her power.

Then it hit her, she didn't need to destroy it, she needed to make it self-destructive.  No, not even self-destructive, just non-productive.  She channeled her inner Marvin the Paranoid Android and had a detailed chat with every line of code.

* * *

"Well that was anticlimactic," Shego said.

At least she wasn't interrupting the music.  The last minute had played out without annoying interruptions.

"What happened?" Kim asked.

"It just ... fell over," Shego said.

"I thought Possible wasn't on this channel," Hawk said.

"Now that the operation is concluded, I have restored communications to the base," Jade said.

"I'm still mad at you about cutting me off," Kim said.

"You were distracting Surge," Jade said.  "Moving to retrieve Surge."

"Thanks, Jade," Surge said.  "Can you drop me back at the base?  I've still got some packing to do."

"I'm out of stuff to load," Blok said.  "So if you can pick up whatever's there and bring it here..."

"We've got a full load ready," Henry said.

"I will return to the base, deliver the cargo there to the shuttle, and then return Drakken to the prison," Jade said.  "Please plan your actions accordingly."

"Amy and I will make sure to get everything we've boxed up onto the sled in time for your arrival, Jade," Hawk said.

"So, everything's back on track," Kim said.

"And you didn't have to boss anyone around," Shego said.  "Must be hard for you."

* * *

Things returned to the monotony of before Jade had spotted the Lorwardian device.  Horatio was coming to love Jade's sound system though. Now that no one needed to get in or out of the car they'd been able to fill the cabin with air allowing him to take off his helmet and just relax.

> _To keep in silence I resigned_  
>  _My friends would think I was a nut_  
>  _Turning water into wine_  
>  _Ope--_

The music stopped at an incoming transmission.

"What's a trans quantum sonic tachyon transducer?" Surge asked over the radio.

_Badly named_ , Horatio thought.  It was also something on the list of stuff he'd asked Surge to get.  He was about to explain, when other people started talking.

"Why?" Kim asked.

"Because I need to get one," Surge said.  "Now what is it?"

"It's a device that uses sound waves to create a--" Drakken said.

"It looks like a metal doughnut with four antennas, equally spaced, around the major circumference, several dials marked with sort of elvish looking symbols--"

"They're scientific--" Drakken protested.

"Not now, Doc," Shego said.  "And it's got a USB cable coming out of it."

Horatio was a bit impressed.  Shego knew what a trans quantum sonic tachyon transducer was.

"Thanks, Shego," Surge said.

And the packing continued.

> _Open doors would soon be shut_

> _So I went from day to day_  
>  _Though my life was in a rut_  
>  _'Till I thought of what I'd say_  
>  _Which connection I should cut_

> _I was feeling part of the scenery_  
>  _I walked right out of the machinery_  
>  _My heart going boom boom boom_  
>  _"Hey" he said "Grab your things_  
>  _I've come to take you home."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I've already given a fair degree of backstory that's different from LJ58's _Fallen Heroes_ I've always said that the action in the story's present won't have a chance to really diverge until they get off the moon. So it still makes sense to talk about this in terms of _Fallen Heroes_ and in those terms the entirety of _Forgotten Seeds_ so far covers more or less the same ground as chapters 4 and 5 of _Fallen Heroes_. That was sort of a sobering realization.
> 
> I'm not _trying_ to stick music in my fiction, it's just that this and _Being more than a Simulacrum_ are in places where music makes sense. To wit, Horatio spends most of the time alone in a car and you _know_ that Kim's flying super car has all the music because ... well, it's Kim's flying super car. "American Tune" seemed a good song for the setting since they've been forsaken, their dreams have been shattered, wondering what's gone wrong is something they've done a lot of, and so forth but they're still keeping on trying. Plus "the ship that sailed the moon". Then I stuck with that album (though not in order) until Jade started picking whichever song she felt like when she headed in to save Drakken.
> 
> It's kind of frustrating that I put the characters in a situation where outside stressors are preventing them from being their normal selves. It feels like Amy's coming across as laconic when really it's just that there's not a lot of room for her usual bubbly personality to show right now. Horiatio, by contrast, usually keeps his mouth firmly shut, but conditions have forced him to speak more than he'd really like. Hawk, Blok, and Henry are basically following other people's leads without much comment right now so they haven't had much chance to show their character at all.
> 
> I promise I'll get them off the moon next chapter.
> 
> Gopher/Gofer is kind of a cool example of an etymological phenomenon that can be hard to describe. The way words derive from other words, gaining and losing denotations and connotations through use, is easy enough to understand, but sideways interaction and be more difficult to see. Gofer comes from "Go For" as in "Go for coffee," as in, "Get me some coffee minion!" A gofer mission is a mission to fetch something (not a fetch quest, gofer missions are far more mundane) and a gofer is a person whose job consists of that sort of thing. No part of this is at all related to the word "gopher" but since the two sound alike, since "gofer" is often spoken instead of written, and since "gopher" is a much more common word, "gopher" has had the effect of changing the unrelated word "gofer" to be more like itself. "Gopher" is already a noted alternate spelling of "gofer" and may one day replace it as the standard spelling. And that's sideways interaction there's no derivation happening, the two words are unrelated (they're not even cognates) but one is changing the other.


	7. Between the Moon and New York City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The survivors finally make their attempt to return to earth.

While the others were securing the cargo in the shuttle, Kim had time to confer with Shego.

"What's your assessment?" Kim asked. No need to say of what, Shego had been looking over every conceivable part of the shuttle for hours.

"Fly by wire system with five hundred year old computers," Shego said. "What could go wrong?"

Kim sighed. She was too emotionally exhausted to respond with anything other than a tired: "Shego."

"Are we in private?" Shego asked.

Kim nodded, "Radios off, just you, me, and the room's atmosphere."

"All of the checks I've been able to do show everything is fine, but even a vacuum doesn't put the kibosh on entropy," Shego said. "Things degrade more slowly when they're not at the mercy of weathering, but they still degrade, and this is all very old.

"There's no way to know how the systems will respond to reentry until we actually try it."

"I thought the shuttle experienced 3 gs or less," Kim said.

"I'm more concerned about heat and turbulence than the number of gs we'll be pulling," Shego said.

"Ok, fine, whatever," Kim said. "Just walk me through the process."

"Autopilot is supposed to be able to do everything," Shego said. "In theory I could take a nap and wake up on the ground. Though it's traditional for the pilot to handle approach and landing.

"There are four main flight computers and one backup," Shego said. "If the backup stays working that's all that we need. If not then we only need two of of the primary computers. Even if the computers all fail, I can fly it down all of the way on manual, so the computers don't bother me.

"And that brings us back to fly by wire, if the circuits fry there are no mechanical linkages, no hydraulic connections, nothing but electronics connecting the controls to anything that matters," Shego said. "If the electronics don't mind their half a millennium long nap...

"This is where things begin to get interesting. At the beginning we use a reaction control system--"

"Thrusters," Kim said.

"Exactly," Shego said. "I've checked them all, all forty four work for now. We need to use them because at the start there's not enough air to rudder or flap worth a damn.

"Our forty four little thrusters are the things that _are_ running on five hundred year old rocket fuel. Ever wonder if it gets stale over time?"

Of course Shego was going to make this as negative as possible. Still, apparently the old rocket fuel did work because, "You said they worked."

"Yeah, for now," Shego said. "Once we're into atmosphere for a while, we get to start using our flaps and elevons and even the rudder. Assuming that the auxiliary power units are still working at this stage and thus get hydraulic pressure to them and, I can't stress this enough, the fact that it's fly by wire doesn't bite us."

"You keep on harping on that," Kim said --no effort to hide her annoyance, there wasn't much point-- "when was the last time you flew something that _wasn't_ fly by wire?"

"Oh, let's see..." Shego said in a way that meant her apparent thinking it over afterward was completely fake, "five hundred and some odd years ago."

Kim groaned, "Ok, stupid question."

"Very," Shego said. "The electronics are powered by hydrogen fuel cells, because nothing says, 'Put me in a high risk environment,' better than something known for its ability to burst into flame."

"Are the fuel cells working?" Kim asked.

"To the best of my ability to check," Shego said. "So, we're in a brick that's smashing into the atmosphere at eighteen thousand miles per hour, everything's shaking and just begging to break down, we're firing off bursts of rocket fuel to keep aimed in the proper direction, and then we start to meander."

That one caught Kim off guard.

"Meander?" she asked.

"It's not your dad's super slick almost mad-science level space plane, Kimmie," Shego said. "It's a space shuttle orbiter. If it's not handled just right it'll get pushed back up. Trust me, you don't even want to know what happens if we bounce on our initial attempt at reentry.

"So to bleed off our speed without getting pushed up we do some nice S curves: four steep banking turns --and I mean _steep_ banks, 45 degree angles have got nothing on what we'll be doing-- that dissipate things sideways instead of up.

"And that's when we go into full glider mode, drop our nose, and head in for a landing," Shego said. "If the heat shield held out. Did I mention how very, very dead we'll become if the heat--"

"I Know!" Kim shouted. Apparently she wasn't quite as emotionally exhausted as she'd thought because she still had it in her to be pissed off at Shego.

"Ok, so, we land on the ice, assuming the landing gear still works after all of the stress we just put on the shuttle," Shego said. "Since we only have unpowered flight, there's only one chance to land right. Of course we don't exactly have a runway to line up with so...

"Oh, if we hit a bird we could all die. Forgot to mention that," Shego said, "touchdown speed will be over two hundred miles per hour, jets usually land at half that. There's a reason shuttle runways are some of the longest in the world. Or were, whatever."

"Area 51 had a much longer one," Kim said.

"You ever find out what they did there?" Shego asked.

"Flying saucers, alien technology, yada, yada, yada," Kim said flatly.

"That's what everyone assumed," Shego said, she sounded disappointed, "talk about anticlimactic."

"They figured that if they leaked the truth, no one would believe it," Kim said.

"That's one step short of the stupidity of a trap-trap," Shego said. "Anyway, I'm just going to assume that deploying the braking chute won't work--"

"Why?" Kim asked. Shego hadn't reported any obvious problems.

"Because I can only find passing references to the material it's made of and absolutely no information about the shelf life, as measured in centuries, for Kevlar," Shego said. "Plus, if something fails I'd rather it be that than, say, the heat shield.

"Anyway, we barrel across the ice until drag and friction --which won't be so useful because: ice--"

"Glacial ice," Kim said. "You'll get your friction."

"Whatever," Shego said. "Eventually we stop. Do you by any chance have equipment to remove toxic gasses from the shuttle once it's down?"

"No."

"More than twenty specially designed landed-space-shuttle processing vehicles?"

"Nope."

"A hundred and fifty people to make sure it's safe for us to get out?"

"Not even close."

"Did you know that it takes an hour for the shuttle to cool down?"

"No."

"Any chance you'd swap seats so that I'll be in the flying car and you'll be in the shuttle?"

"Not a chance."

"Get some of that will to live back?" Shego asked.

"You're a better pilot," Kim said.

Shego sighed. "I've done my preflight, and everything is in working order now. What I don't know is what's going to happen when we put this relic through the stress of reentry.

"If we lose power there is literally nothing I can do," Shego said.

"What happened to 'I can work with this'?" Kim asked.

"I can, and it'll be fun," Shego said, she even had a hint of a smirk, "if it works."

* * *

Surge helped Horatio strap into one of the seats in the shuttle.

"I don't see why Kim couldn't take you in Jade with her," she said.

"Best guess is that she's considering doing something profoundly stupid," Horatio said.

* * *

"Are we clear?" Kim asked.

"Perfectly clear," Jade said, "but I again remind you that the stresses involved could destroy both of us."

"Which is why we'll only do it as a last resort," Kim said.

"That has been noted," Jade said. "I repeat that there is no need for you to actually be within me for this mission."

"That has been noted," Kim said.

"If you had not taken steps to keep them in the dark," Jade said, "I believe the others would agree that there's no reason to put yourself at unnecessary risk."

"Which is why they're being kept in the dark," Kim said. Why she'd filled the cabin with air, cut the radio, and was having this conversation the old fashioned way: Jade's voice synthesizer and speakers to Kim's ears, Kim's voice to Jade's internal microphones. Why Kim was supposedly doing a final check of Jade alone while the others got ready for the trip. "If either of us thinks the probability of success for the shuttle is too low the backup plan starts immediately with no objection from the other."

"Understood," Jade said.

* * *

"Everybody's strapped in on the middeck," Hawk said. "I think Operation Horrible Idea is ready to start."

Shego nodded. As she looked to Drakken in the copilot's chair she heard Surge say, "I thought we were going with, 'Best Bad Idea'."

When Shego looked back at Surge and Horatio she saw they were ready too.

"Kimmie," Shego said, "we're ready on this end."

"Ok, I'm ready to tow," Kim said.

"Just remember," Shego said, "Mind the heat shield."

"It's why we're going for a vertical lift off," Kim said.

The shuttle began to tilt.

"This is fun," Amy said with her usual cheerfulness.

Shego rolled her eyes.

* * *

Hawk had a good view of Amy and Henry, but the arrangement of the middeck chairs meant that he couldn't see Blok. Still, if things went wrong Blok had a better chance of surviving than anyone else.

Amy was chipper, Henry was calm. Hopefully things would work out.

* * *

The moment the shuttle was close enough to vertical that they wouldn't be dragged along the heat shield, Shego said, "Alright Kimmy, we're probably crushing the hell out of the engines now, so get us off this rock as soon as you can."

"We will be ready to make the lift momentarily," Jade responded.

That's went the music started.

Horatio mumbled, "Good choice," in his ever deteriorating mode of speech and then Shego recognized the song.

"This is cliché," Shego said.

"It's tradition," Jade countered.

The shuttle started to lift.

The lyrics started:

> _I like to dream_  
>  _yes, yes, right between my sound machine_  
>  _On a cloud of sound I drift in the night_  
>  _Any place it goes is right_  
>  _Goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here_
> 
> _Well, you don't know what we can find_  
>  _Why don't you come with me little girl_  
>  _On a magic carpet ride_

* * *

"We've reached the midpoint," Jade announced over the radio. "Beginning deceleration."

"I vote another episode the radio show," Hawk said, "When we left off Ford and Arthur were at the crossroads of two alternative futures and Zaphod was in an abducted building being towed to The Frogstar."

"Or we could just put on a concert," Henry said, "A decent concert would last us until we were back on earth, no need for more voting."

"Please think over your options for the next eight minutes," Jade said.

"Why eight minutes?" Amy asked.

Music started:

> _Slow ride; take it easy,_  
>  _Slow ride; take it easy,_

"Because we're decelerating," Shego said flatly. "How original."

"Don't talk over the music," Jade responded.

* * *

"We have reached Earth," Jade reported. "I will begin lining you up for your reentry vector."

* * *

"Ok, that's it for the braking maneuver," Shego said to Kim and Jade. "Flip us right-side up and detach the tow cable."

"Will do," Kim said. "And don't worry, we'll get any birds out of your way."

* * *

"The friction's going to fry us!" Drakken said.

"It's drag, not friction!" Shego shouted. Brilliant scientist, yes, but damn did he not know aeronautics. Shego growled. "Something's wrong here."

"What's wrong?" Kim asked over the radio.

"Don't know," Shego said. "I tried to switch over to full manual but it's acting like--" the controls went from sluggish to entirely non-responsive. "Shit! I've got no control."

* * *

Kim said, "Jade, it's time for--"

"Kimberley, you are lacking information," Jade said.

"We talked about--"

"You turned off the radio too soon," Jade said.

"They don't--"

There was a painful high pitched noise. Kim covered her ears and wondered what could have gone wrong to produce such a noise.

"Let me finish," Jade said.

Oh. Apparently the noise had been punishing her for not listening. Kim considered delivering a lecture on how cars aren't supposed to disobey their drivers, but she had a feeling Jade would ignore it.

Instead she just said, "That was **not** nice."

"This was moments after you stopped listening to the radio," Jade said.

Shego's voice came over the speakers, "Surge, I need you to talk to the shuttle."

"I thought everyone was against me using my powers," Surge said. "You know how they can be."

"Nothing fancy," Shego said, "just get the control surfaces to listen to me."

"Doesn't Sarah's power have a habit of blowing things up?" Kim asked.

"Attempting to steer the shuttle to a safe landing by repeatedly colliding with it to effect course corrections has a very low probability of success," Jade said. "At this point I estimate their odds of survival are better by a statistically significant margin if we allow them to attempt Shego's plan."

"Alright," Kim said. "But if that plan doesn't work we're implementing plan B"

"Agreed," Jade said.

* * *

Surge was out of her seat, space suit glove off, touching a wall of the cockpit.

"Something's wrong with the computers," Surge said, "it'll take me a minute to figure out how to get your commands around them."

"We don't have a minute," Shego said. "Make the ship bank left."

Sparks erupted from something Horatio was pretty sure sparks shouldn't come from. The shuttle banked.

"Steeper," Shego said. "A lot steeper."

" _How_ steep?" Surge asked.

"Shoot for just shy of 90 degrees," Shego said.

"Things are going **very** wrong down here," Hawk reported.

"If it looks like lightning don't touch it," Shego said as the shuttle banked more steeply. "We've got bigger problems up here."

"I don't know how long I can keep this up," Surge said.

"Then now is the time to figure out how to make the shuttle listen to me," Shego said. Something on Shego's left --controls? a computer?-- exploded. Shego took a glance and then said, "We didn't need that anyway."

* * *

Horatio reached out and took Surge's free hand --her right hand. Her left was surrounded by pink plasma filaments and pressed against an electronic panel of some kind on side of the cockpit.

"The only way I can get your commands passed the computers is through me," Surge said. The plasma filaments multiplied and intensified. "You should be in control now Shego," Surge said, "but I have no idea how long I can hold it."

Hawk's voice came over the radio, "Things are getting very violent and very pink down here."

"If we live it'll be because of violent and pink," Shego said.

"There may be another way," Kim said over the radio.

"The other way she's referring to has an extremely low probability of success," Jade said.

Surge looked to Horatio, smiled, then said, "Profoundly stupid."

That was still Horatio's best guess, so he nodded. Then he said, "If we die, maybe you'll be with Jana again."

For a moment the name seemed to hit her like an electric shock, that hadn't been Horatio's intention and he was about to apologize when Surge's entire posture changed, something more calm, more determined, and then Surge asked, "She never gave up on me?"

"Never, Sarah," Horatio said. He had no idea what effect the words would have, but he wasn't going to lie.

Sarah --Surge-- closed her eyes, held Horatio's hand more tightly, and did something that made even more plasma filaments appear.

"Shego, get us home," Surge said.

* * *

"Get ready to deploy the landing gear," Shego said.

"Hydraulics are shot," Surge said. "All three sets."

"Tell it to deploy anyway!" Shego shouted.

"What goo--" Surge said. "Oh."

"What happened?" Blok asked.

"When the hydraulics failed stuff blew up and the gear deployed using springs," Surge said.

"This thing was built with redundancy in mind," Shego said. "Surge strap back in."

"You'll lose control," Surge said.

"I s-- brace!" Shego said.

A rough bump knocked Surge to the ground.

"We're on the ice," Shego said. "You still connected, Spark Plug?"

"Yeah, Glow Stick," Surge said from the floor.

"And we have drag chute deployment," Shego said. "Nothing left for you to do kid."

* * *

With the others finally back on earth, at long last Kim was able to breathe easy. It didn't last long.

"Shit!" came Shego's voice.

Kim didn't have time to see what was happening. Jade started moving very fast and announced, "Implementing plan B."

* * *

"Ow," Blok said.

Something crackled on a radio but he couldn't make it out. He slowly got to his feet. Earth gravity. Such a welcome burden. Based on the state of his space suit and the chair he'd been strapped into he must have turned to stone on instinct.

Always a shame that he couldn't take much more than basic textiles and leathers through the transformation with him.

What was left of the suit radio crackled again. He looked it over. The mic, transmitter, and receiver seemed fine, but the speaker was just too beat up to be of use. He could probably cannibalize one from elsewhere.

* * *

Amy, Hawk, and Henry were all alive, but he couldn't wake them. He'd check on the others, but for the moment he was working on the radio.

When he thought it would work he said, "My radio was damaged; I didn't receive any of your previous transmissions."

"I said," Jade said, "that it was good to finally have one of you humans awake. Then I kept on saying variations on, 'Can you here me now?'"

"What happened?" Block asked.

"The shuttle began a roll which could have killed you all," Jade said. "In order to get it back on the ground I rammed the rising right wing, forcing it back down. Kim and I were damaged in the process and I have no information on those inside the shuttle."

"Everyone is alive on the middeck," Block said. "I'm the only one conscious. I'm not a doctor so I can't assess them. I'm going to check the cockpit now."

* * *

"Please tell me that the planet that hit me was earth," Henry said as he woke up.

"It was indeed," Jade said. "You're only the second to wake up after the collision. Please assist Blok in bringing the others to me so that I can scan them."

* * *

"Get your hands off me or lose them!" Shego shouted.

"Sorry," Henry said.

"We didn't realize you were awake," Blok said.

"We're bringing everyone to the wonder car for medical scans," Henry said.

Shego nodded. "I can walk myself."

Blok shrugged, "Saves us some trouble." Then he turned to Henry and asked, "Who do you want to take next?"

"I'll carry Dr. D," Shego said, "you two get Surge and the self-proclaimed oracle."

* * *

Kim groaned as she woke up.

"You were right, Princess," Shego said from under Jade.

Kim's head hurt and she had no idea what Shego was talking about.

"That it was fly by wire wasn't the problem," Shego said. "If not for the computers refusing to relinquish control even after something made them stop giving orders to the flight surfaces, we'd have had a perfect trip."

"How is everyone?" Kim asked.

"You're the last to wake up," Shego said. "Your car scanned everyone."

"Everyone has survived with minimal injuries," Jade reported. "Though the five of you with concussions should know that the negative effects from even relatively minor concussions, like your own, can last for more than a month."

Horatio gave a flat, "Yay."

"They can also go away in a few days," Kim said, "so it might not be that bad."

"Thanks doc," Shego said to Kim as she rolled out from underneath Jade, "but I kind of trust the car more.

"Speaking of the car . . ." Shego said. "Jade, what do your diagnostics say now?"

"Your repairs, and the speed with which you did them, are impressive, Shego," Jade said. "I am again operating at 100% and believe I have found a new mechanic.

"Horatio, I would like to speak to you about your condition in private," Jade said, "and --with permission-- I will begin scouting the nearby area in greater detail."

"In private?" Kim asked.

"Jade has respect for doctor patient confidentiality," Hawk said as if it were a minor revelation. "Good ethics programming."

"Thank you," Jade said.

"You're welcome," Hawk said, then he turned to the others. "So what do we do while they're busy with that?"

"For now we make camp at the shuttle," Kim said. "So the first things we want working are the heaters, we can use the shuttle for shelter. Once that's done, we get down to the basics of staying alive."

"Food, water, weapons," Shego said.

* * *

Surge helped Horatio into Jade and then started to leave.

"You might as well stay," Horatio said. "It looks like you're the one who's stuck helping me, so . . . Jade, I authorize you to share my medical information with Surge starting now and ending if I tell you to stop."

"Understood," Jade said.

Surge walked around the car and got in via the other side. When she sat down beside Horatio she said, "I don't consider myself stuck; I'm helping you because I want to."

The car started to rise, "I'm going to be scouting the area while we speak."

* * *

Kim was setting up a heater in the shuttle's middeck, which seemed to be the general living area. Shego was on the middle bunk, sleeping. All the others were checking the cargo hold.

The airlock opened. Kim looked up to see Hawk, Blok, and Henry walk in.

"Obviously we haven't checked everything," Hawk said, "But it looks like none of the bigger things broke loose so nothing got smashed, crushed, or otherwise rendered useless by having something giant land on it."

"In fact, as near as we can tell," Blok says, "it looks like our supplies didn't get worse than some dings and dents."

"Amy and Drakken are checking on things with sensitive parts," Henry said; "seeing how they held up with the rough landing. Still, it's looking like pretty much everything stayed strapped in, just like us, and thus it couldn't get too badly damaged."

"Thanks for the damage report," Kim said. "For now, we'll check individual things as we need them. First things we're going to need are those water purifiers and food. If we do the water first, we can use dehydrated foodstuffs."

Henry cringed, "Have you ever tasted that stuff?"

"Unfortunately," Kim said. "But right now I just want to eat something, no matter how unappetizing it is."

"We're on it, Red," Blok said.

The three returned to the cargo hold and Kim was back working in silence. The difficulty wasn't the heater itself, it was making it work using the power sources they had on hand that was proving problematic.

Still, they were on earth, and she was making them a place to stay. They'd come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently rocket fuel does go stale, make of that what you will. Did Shego actually make/restore enough for the thursters and then not mention it because she was in negativity mode? Did Saint Jude intervene? Was it Ḥanukah? Don't know, don't care. The thrusters worked, the computers borked.
> 
> Surge's interface with the shuttle has, basically, killed all of the electronic systems on the shuttle. It's just a big metal enclosure with no foundation now. Since they don't actually have a use for the shuttle as anything other than a big metal enclosure with no foundation, the characters might not ever notice or care that the electronics are dead.
> 
> The reason that Kim stayed on Jade was so she could be there to order Jade to implement the back up plan even if Jade herself would not have. That obviously didn't work out, and it wasn't a rational a decision anyway (Jade was better able to assess success probabilities.) That said, Jade didn't (strictly speaking) disobey. The deal they made was if either thought the probability of success was too low and Kim didn't know the probability (because she was lacking information) and thus wasn't concluding that the actual probability was too low. That's how Jade rationalized what she did. Of course, Jade would have done it even without a loophole so... yeah.
> 
> One might note that New York City doesn't appear in this chapter. This is how _I_ rationalize:  
>  Even though most of the action is during reentry where this wouldn't be true, the chapter is about the trip from the moon to the earth and most of that trip is, in fact, between the Moon and NYC.
> 
> The title is from the song "Arthur's Theme", by Christopher Cross et al. The line itself was originally written as part of an Allen and Bayer Sager collaboration that never got released. That's why Allen gets a writing credit even though he wasn't directly involved in writing "Arthur's Theme".
> 
> This marks the last part where the action of _Forgotten Seeds_ corresponds with the story it was based on, _Fallen Heroes_ by LJ58. Chapters 1 through 7 of _Forgotten Seeds_ correspond to Chapters 4 through 6 of _Fallen Heroes_. They're not the same, obviously, (I'd like to think that I've made this my own pretty well) but the general overview lines up. Because of a major backstory difference I've already brought up at length (no humans left on earth), and the different way my characters have of interacting with the past (Horatio instead of the quantum projector) things will diverge sharply now that they're on earth.
> 
> The difference in the number of chapters it took to cover the events kind of shows the plodding pace of my storytelling. I took thirty eight thousand words what took LJ58 ten thousand. I actually like plodding. Not the fact that there was an eight month hiatus, that was updating not storytelling, but going slow and getting lots of detail. Which for me tends to mean characterization since I kind of suck at physical detail.
> 
> Anything else?
> 
> Right. "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf, "Slow Ride" by Foghat, and when they reach the midpoint the most recent episode of the Original Radio Series that kicked off the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ franchise that they've listened to is the so-called Christmas Episode which never mentions or references any kind of holiday (certainly not Christmas) and is called "The Christmas Episode" because it was first played on December 24th, which is not Christmas. ("The twelve days of" start on Christmas Day and end on January 5th, if you were wondering.) The episode was the first of Season 2, and originally there were only two seasons with six episodes each.
> 
> If you can manage it, I recommend never _ever_ getting a concussion.


End file.
